by Ekeke, C. C.
“Are we waiting for backup?” Sunrider sounded excited.
“Hell no!” Roadblock bellowed. His “don’t give a fuck” attitude amused Hugo.
The Tiamat stepped one gimungus foot onto shore, sloshing water over the boardwalk. Mouth wide open, it doused one building in thick, electric energy.
The structure exploded. Chunks of wood, metal, and stone flew every which way.
The Extreme Teens recoiled. Hugo shielded his eyes, waves of intense heat wafting at him.
“On it!” Blur rushed toward the ruined structure.
Hugo breathed easier after a sweeping glance confirmed the pier and boardwalk were empty.
The skyscraper-sized Tiamat swiveled its bulbous head, searching the shoreline.
Hugo was drawing a blank on strategy. I have to do something. He floated off the ground, fists clenched.
“Stand down, Aegis!”
Hugo grimaced, a familiar reaction to that voice.
Several figures touched down around the teenagers, ripped straight from the superhero movies.
Hugo recognized everyone but hadn’t met most.
Battalion approached first. The powerhouse Hyperion flew beside Blast-o-Lantern, who sported a flaming head and a furnace-like chest. Viva la Volt issued electric forks from his fingers to float his other teammates on metal plates: statuesque Masada, Arachnaut with his four spider legs, the vigilante La Noire, dinomorphing Raptor, and medieval Man-of-War.
The Hollywood Bombshells came next. All female. All stunning. Merry Mayhem, the petite leader, landed first. Malibu, with her sky-blue hair, carried Thunderosa and Stiletto.
Hugo was stunned seeing Tsunami, veteran from The Vanguard’s Sensational Seven roster. She rode a foamy wave in her iconic bikini costume.
But Hugo’s attention landed on the hero who’d spoken. Lady Liberty hovered a few feet above, majestic in presence with beautiful and stern features. Her leggy red costume clung to her statuesque build with a silvery diadem on her head.
The stare-down was intense and uncomfortable.
Hugo forced out a professional greeting. “Lady Liberty.”
Her expression was steely as she addressed everyone. “This Tiamat swam from the Gulf of Mexico, where Know-It-All dropped the last of his kaiju eggs.”
Acrimony aside, Hugo was relieved by Lady Liberty’s presence. And standing among this caliber of heroes, the Samoan knew in his soul that he belonged.
Hyperion’s movie-star good looks scrunched up in aggravation. “I thought every kaiju got destroyed. What special kind of asshole makes sea monsters?”
“Evil man-babies wanting attention,” Merry Mayhem dismissed. “And to punish the world for ignoring their intellect.”
Another whoosh marked another arrival: Tomorrow Man, barrel-chested and blond, in his orange-and-black suit with his cape fluttering. “Have no fear. Tomorrow Man is here,” he said unironically, hands on hips.
Hugo guffawed, and Tsunami giggled. Everyone else ignored Tomorrow Man. The superhero community and general public had considered him a joke after his humiliating defeat on Black Wednesday.
The Tiamat gave another quivering cry and bathed San Luis Pier in scalding electricity. As the famous pier burned, the kaiju turned its eye toward the shipping port farther up the coast.
“Your city, Libby,” Raptor remarked. “What’s the play?”
Lady Liberty took charge. “Evacuating surrounding buildings is the priority. Medical vehicles are blocked until the Tiamat’s energy drain is disabled, so we get injured civilians to them.” She pointed to the gigantic Tiamat wading toward the shipping port. “We keep the Tiamat here and kill it. Blur, sweep the nearby buildings. The Extreme Teens except Starchylde can help anyone trapped in their cars.”
Blur dashed off while every Extreme Teen save Starchylde ran normally toward the frozen PCH.
Lady Liberty turned to Battalion. “Hyperion,” she addressed the handsome powerhouse. “Battalion can evac the port with Aegis.” She turned to her former teammate. “Tsunami, kill those fires.”
Tsunami nodded, raising both hands and circling them. Ocean waves swelled up, drenching the blazing pier. Hugo found the former teammates’ solidarity comforting, given their previous feud.
Steam from the boardwalk reached skyward in knotty curls.
When Battalion got moving, Hugo almost questioned Lady Liberty’s plan for the Tiamat, now a gigantic shadow behind the steam wading up the coast.
But he watched Lady Liberty give Starchylde, Viva la Volt, and Tomorrow Man instructions.
“Draw the Tiamat’s attention, but be careful,” she warned. “Those electroplasma blasts killed half a dozen superheroes in Miami.” While that trio took off, Lady Liberty huddled with the Bombshells for further strategy discussions.
Only then did Hugo soar toward the Port of San Miguel. Occupying San Luis Obispo Bay’s west end was a small city of cargo terminals, container cranes, rows of color-coded containers, and miles of dock rail. Those rails of the port were on half-artificial land to accommodate the cargo exchange in and out of San Miguel.
Hugo dreaded the damage the Tiamat could do. Port police were already evacuating workers.
“We’ve redirected all freighters to the Port of Los Angeles,” one female officer said, harried but proficient. “But three freighters haven’t docked yet.”
“I got one!” Hugo stated, flying ahead of Hyperion. “You get the second. We’ll do the third together.”
Farther away, the towering Tiamat broke through steam and smoke, stomping toward them. Starchylde, Malibu, and Viva la Volt’s tiny forms buzzed around the kaiju’s round head like angry bees, blasting away with energy attacks. Tomorrow Man launched himself into the Tiamat’s torso, shoving the kaiju back. These attacks stalled the beast but hardly damaged that scaly hide.
Hugo’s heart leaped anytime the Tiamat puked out jets of electroplasma, then relaxed when his fellow heroes kept buzzing unharmed.
He focused on pushing a massive red-and-black freighter into the port, careful not to damage the hull. Despite weighing several tons, Hugo was pleased at how easily he moved the vessel. His strength continued to increase.
Hyperion, however, was struggling. Hugo flew over to slow his ship before it docked. Members of Battalion directed everyone off.
“Big sea monster wants to eat you,” Arachnaut ordered, sounding twelve. “Run.” That sent every passenger scrambling as soon as they touched land.
Hugo moved toward the third freighter, strong currents already steering it into the dock. Tsunami stood atop a frothy wave, pushing the ship with her hydrokinesis.
She’d retired in 2005 when Hugo was a toddler, but he’d become a fan via YouTube videos and modeling photoshoots. In her late forties with four kids, this enduring beauty still wore her white bikini-styled costume flawlessly.
She caught Hugo staring and teased him with a flirty look. “Hello, Aegis. Big fan.”
Hello! Hugo’s eyes widened beneath his mask. Something else widened down south.
“Thanks, Tsunami.” He waved, almost forgetting his Aegis voice.
“It’s Margarita.” Tsunami winked and dove backward off her wave into the sea.
Meanwhile, the Tiamat roared, swatting at the heroes circling its head.
Hugo noticed Hyperion hovering nearby, staring after Tsunami with sex-glazed eyes. “What a fox!” he noted. “She can still get it.”
Hugo barely kept a straight face. “No comment.”
“Aegis,” Lady Liberty annoyingly interrupted over coms. “Are the container cranes clear?”
Hugo scowled and scanned about with telescopic vision. “Yes—wait.” His heart lurched. “Stragglers.” Swearing heatedly, Hugo rocketed toward the red crane. Two wiry and weathered men tried working the machine’s controls with no luck. There was always someone.
“Hey!” Hugo landed on the platform beside the duo, startling them. “Let’s go!”
The taller, dark-skinned man shook his head stubbornly.
“We have a job to do!”
His coworker nodded.
Hugo felt the searing heat before seeing it, memories of Thor’s lightning leaving him paralyzed.
But those two dockworkers’ terrified faces illuminated by looming death snapped Hugo out of it.
“I have a job too.” Hugo rag-dolled both men over his shoulders and dove. A split second later, a jet of yellow electroplasma sheared the crane in half.
The top of the massive crane fell. But Hugo couldn’t catch it while holding these dockworkers.
Luckily, Hyperion sped through the air, grabbing it in time.
Hugo exhaled and floated toward the docks. “That was close.”
The dockworkers scowled. “Now we don’t get paid,” the taller man huffed. “Thanks, asshole.”
Hugo almost shoved him into the water. Instead, he dropped them on their butts. “Get outta here.”
Once they fled, Hugo flew toward Port San Luis Pier. He arrived as Lady Liberty detailed the critical point of her plan. “Tomorrow Man, drive that pylon with all your strength through the Tiamat’s throat. Then Malibu, Starchylde, and I will superheat it with a combined energy attack.”
Tomorrow Man somehow found a large metal pylon five times longer than himself. He sneered at Hugo and the Extreme Teens. “Watch and learn, children.” He raced at the Tiamat, pylon hoisted overhead.
Currently, the kaiju had been blinded by a combo of Lady Liberty’s crimson optic blasts, Starchylde’s flame bursts, and Tsunami’s water spouts. With the Tiamat distracted, Tomorrow Man accelerated to ram the pylon through the kaiju’s throat.
The Extreme Teens, Battalion, and the Bombshells cheered. Lady Liberty hung in the air, riveted.
Despite any personal dislike, Hugo was rooting for Tomorrow Man. “C’mon. You got this—”
The Tiamat wildly flailed. A tentacle smacked Tomorrow Man out of mid-air.
Everyone cringed. Tomorrow Man went skipping across the sea like a stone.
“Tomorrow Man got knocked into next week!” Thunderosa jeered. Despite being six feet, two hundred seventy pounds, thick-bodied and irresistibly strong, the Filipina hero laughed like a bubbly tween girl.
Hugo had to laugh. Every Extreme Teen laughed. That was, until the pylon twirled in another direction and impaled the Port San Luis Pier with a solid crunch.
Hugo’s heart sank. “Oooph!”
Lady Liberty recovered from the setback, weaving around another swing of the Tiamat’s tentacle. “Grab him, Sunrider.” She looked to her former teammate, who pounded tidal waves against the Tiamat. “Tsunami, keep distracting. We’ll drop cars in its mouth, then ignite them.”
In its mouth… Hugo instantly recalled that Jonah and the Whale Bible story. Getting anywhere near that Tiamat’s mouth scared the shit out of him, until a somewhat bonkers plan came to mind.
“Where are you going?” Lady Liberty demanded as Hugo flew past.
“To pick a fight,” he called back.
The Tiamat’s throat glowed, about to vomit another electric blast.
Hugo came sailing in with an axe-handle blow to its jaw.
The Tiamat got rocked sideways, shaking its mammoth-sized head.
Realizing his plan needed firepower, Hugo turned to Starchylde hovering nearby. “I need you.”
Malibu and Lady Liberty floated forward.
“What?” the latter remarked.
Starchylde glanced reluctantly at her team.
The Tiamat trained its gleaming eyes on Hugo, who now felt ridiculously tiny.
He needed Starchylde’s answer now.
“Yes,” she blurted out.
“Let’s go.” Relieved, Hugo dove down the length of the massive kaiju.
“Aegis, no!” Lady Liberty protested.
Hugo ignored her. “Keep distracting him.”
The Tiamat glared down at him and lifted a foot as large as a city block.
Starchylde hovered just above the ground, like him. Her pupil-less eyes bulged in understandable worry. “Where do you want me?”
Hugo clenched both fists. The kaiju bared its teeth and stomped its foot down. “Follow me.”
“Hey!” Blur barked from several feet away. “You don’t order around my team.”
Hugo blasted skyward, uppercutting the Tiamat with both fists. The blow hit like a thunderclap, and Hugo hissed at his stinging knuckles, even in shock-absorbent gloves. “Motherfuck!”
The Tiamat’s head snapped back, the beast stumbling several dekameters, but didn’t fall.
A sustained sonic scream to the Tiamat’s face knocked the beast off its feet.
The colossal splash shot several miles high. Everything and everyone around Port San Luis Pier got drenched. The kaiju sank. Hugo floated higher, waiting.
Beneath the rippling surface was a massive silhouette covering three football stadiums.
Two demonic red eyes stared up at Hugo.
“Aegis!” Merry Mayhem cried. “It’s tracking you!”
Hugo grinned victoriously. “Exactly.” He flew away from the pier slow enough for the Tiamat to see him. “Everyone but Starchylde stay!” he bellowed.
Starchylde pursued him, a thick vein of green smoke trailing her.
“Lady Liberty—?” Blur whined.
“Do as he says,” she said, openly seething.
Now miles away from the shore, Hugo turned to Starchylde. “Stay higher than me. And when I say dive, you follow me full blaze.”
Starchylde nodded, never questioning him. “Done.”
Hugo slowed and pulled several feet higher. Avila Beach and the San Miguel coast looked so tiny this far out. His attention fixated on what lay beneath the deep blue. “C’mon. C’mon.” Heart racing, Hugo was scared that he could die, exhilarated by this insanity, worrying if the Tiamat would take the bait.
Soon, the deep shadow moved with frightening nautical speed.
When the underwater shadow reached them, Starchylde tensed but didn’t flee. “Now?”
Hugo shook his hooded head. “Not yet.” Fear dominated his thoughts. What if this got him and Starchylde killed? He pushed that thought aside, the moment arriving.
A foamy eruption breached the ocean surface, the Tiamat jumping up at Hugo. Its mouth opened wide to swallow him, ringed with too many teeth to count.
“DIVE!” Hugo plunged into the Tiamat’s stinky, fathomless gullet. Descending into darkness, he sensed Starchylde’s heat washing down behind him.
Hugo unleashed a sonic scream, shredding apart this creature’s esophageal tunnel.
Barreling down the beast, Hugo saw and smelled Starchylde's flames scorch away mucus-lined tissue. Convulsions and tremors intensified the deeper they burrowed into the Tiamat’s digestive tract. Upon entering the stomach, Hugo angled up with a burst of speed and punched through the Tiamat’s midback.
An explosion of scales and bowels trailed him, along with a fiery green flash marking Starchylde’s exit.
Hugo, flying too low, went skidding across the water until finally sinking. He quickly surfaced, gasping, covered in ichor and kaiju guts.
His worry shifted as the Tiamat’s swaying corpse pitched backward.
“Shit!” Hugo blasted up and away, just missing the Tiamat’s body flopping into the ocean. Another massive fountain splashed miles high. Hugo grinned and soared higher, arms spread triumphantly.
Once he was high above the ocean, a sudden fear spurred him to turn and check if the Tiamat was truly dead.
The ocean roiled around the kaiju sinking into the depths with twitching limbs, never rising again. A quick listen with superhearing confirmed the Tiamat’s heart slowed to nothing.
Starchylde seared the air as she flew to him. “That was amazing!” she gushed.
Hugo brushed gooey Tiamat slime off his costume. “And gross.” He’d definitely need a few showers.
When he and Starchylde flew back to Avila Beach, power had restarted. Emergency services arrived with blaring sirens. Cars were moving again. Throngs of
civilians swarmed the outskirts to catch sight of the superheroes at the port. There was considerable damage, especially to Avila Beach’s famed pier. Quite a few buildings had been torched by the Tiamat, no longer burning thanks to Tsunami. Even sweeter, Hyperion reported zero casualties.
“Well done, Aegis,” he remarked.
The Extreme Teens, the Hollywood Bombshells and Hyperion’s own team echoed his compliments while clearing debris. Getting acknowledged by his fellow superheroes felt weird but meant a lot.
But Blur rolled his eyes in disgust while Lady Liberty glared at him.
Sunrider reappeared on her gleaming surfboard, carrying a drenched Tomorrow Man. “That creature will pay.” He swiveled his head, soaked blond locks flying hilariously. “Where—?”
“Dead.” Merry Mayhem gestured at Hugo admiringly. “Aegis and Starchylde took him down.”
“It was Aegis’s idea,” Starchylde corrected.
Hugo’s cheeks warmed.
Tomorrow Man bristled. “You again?”
Hugo shrugged, unapologetic. “Me again.” Not his fault that Tomorrow Man kept dropping the ball.
“You’re a teen, aren’t you?” Starchylde asked a little later while she and Hugo floated above to give EMTs and firefighters space to work.
Hugo stiffened but managed to play dumb. “What are you talking about?”
Starchylde smiled knowingly. “Your verbal reactions betray your adolescence.”
Shiite. Hugo really needed to watch his sarcasm.
Then Starchylde reached out and clutched his hands, her pupil-less eyes filling his world.
“Blur is aging out of our team soon,” she intoned gently.
Hugo blinked. “You’re inviting me to join the Extreme Teens?” No way was Starchylde serious…
She squeezed his hands. “We make a great team.” Her husky whisper oozed with naked intent. “Think of what you could do on the Extreme Teens with OWE’s resources.”
“I…” Hugo forced his brain out of the fog, remembering his rule about teams. “I don’t mind team-ups, but I normally go solo—”
“Aegis.”
Hugo pulled away from Starchylde like the kid caught stealing from the candy jar.
