Chương 87: The One In Which There Is A Giant Crab (Part 1)

The most ridiculous sight in my life and it prompted panic from everyone around me. Hidalgo didn't even say a word, rushing back into the house while the henches followed. That Smythe guy was already piling into the helicopter and taking off, leaving just me out there on my own, watching a gigantic crab trudge through the water towards land. It was times like this that made me think fate had a terrible sense of humor for me. Bringing my hand up to my earpiece, I spoke.

"Tancred, we have a problem." A few seconds later, his voice.

"Shit, kid," his voice was static-y.

"Was just about to finally call it quits and nap. I'm getting interference on your end. What's wrong?"

"No time for fucking around. Giant crab." Silence for about eight seconds.

"What?"

"Giant crab. Kaiju-sized. You said those detection systems take a few minutes, well I'm seeing one right now so you might want to put in the alert."

"Fucking Hell- Got it. Where's it en route to?"

"Not sure of the exact spot, but it looks like it's going to hit Virginia Beach first. Gonna do what I can to help."

"What you ca- Kid, that's a kaiju!"

"I'm still a superhero, Tancred."

"... A dumb one, but at least you're ow---g it. Inter-----ce is get---- worse. Must h--- -n organ. Dam-g- ---trol. Sig--- b----er." Had no idea what most of that was, but I thought I processed the words "Damage control," and that was enough for me. While the other henches had gone off inside, I did my best to feign a desperate, panicked sprint down the hill. Faked tripping to send myself hurtling down.

Honestly, if it weren't for the insanity of the moment, tumbling down a hill at high speeds when falls don't hurt me would probably have been a highlight of my day. I ended up rolling down to a road that interrupted the hill. From there, I had a good look at the town proper, and the crab itself. The goddamn thing really was just a gigantic crab. Most kaiju usually have some indication they're not normal animals. Weird extra limbs, strange body shapes, something.

This was just a crab with a body more than three times the size of the stadium I fought Technofiend in standing on top of building-sized legs. Lunging from the road after confirming it was empty, I managed to land feet-first into the city proper. My gaze snapped around for a good spot to change, before serendipity decided to deign me with some kind of punchline to all of this. A phone booth. Covered in enough graffiti and rotting advertisement posters that you couldn't see the inside.

I wasn't going to complain, though. Rushing into it, I immediately started slipping out of my clothes and yanking my costume on. The suit felt cold up my back as I put it on, likely the adrenaline surging through me as I got ready to risk facing something I'd never faced before in my life. BWAAAAAAAAAAAA Sirens. Loud ones. They screamed endlessly. Must be this city's system for kaiju alerts. Made sense, they were close to the shore. Any that came from the water would hit them first.

I got my suit entirely on, except my mask. I stared at it, taking a deep breath. I can do this. I have to do this. Forcing the mask back onto myself, letting myself wash in the warmth of motivation. Initiative. This is the only thing I'd ever wanted. Just like when I first fought the tree men. This was all I could ever fantasize about. Facing off against the biggest threats. I left my bag in the phone booth before lunging through the air, slamming down onto the roof of a nearby building.

The crab was getting closer, and the size of the goddamn thing became more ridiculous to process as the gap kept closing.

"-lright, signal booster's on. Report." Tancred. Could barely hear him. I brought a finger to my earpiece.

"Gonna focus on evacuating first. It hasn't done anything aggressive yet."

"Could be just a walker, then. Following kaiju protocols, I'm going to be putting out feelers to independent superheroes and super teams."

"What, your contract killers in the Patriot Project not interested in actually helping people?"

"No, you moron, they're an escalation. And if you think I didn't already try getting one of them queued up, you're wrong. Issue is whatever that fucking crab is doing messes with the low-frequency band Patriot Project communication devices use." This crab was either a blessing or a curse.

"The Forces of Nature and the Wave of Hope's contacts are far more straightforward. The Wave of Hope uses The Saint's volunteer recon network, who have an open helpline, and The Forces of Nature has a named public representative. Uncle Sam can get any person's phone number in two minutes if we have their full name."

"What about my team?"

"Being woken up and deployed now. Similar to you, they're going to be on damage control. Wave of Hope has The Saint and Guapo Galera, they'll be handling the kaiju. Just waiting for a response from The Saint's network. Forces of Nature, if they answer, will be auxiliary in both. You'll have military support courtesy of the Oceana Naval Air Station."

"Fine. Getting started now." Lunging again from the building, I hopped from each one, slamming my palms together for a loud PAH to alert anyone who had somehow slept through the obnoxiously loud alarms. As I ran out of buildings to leap from, I landed on the paved stairway that led to the beach the city was named after. A large crowd had already gathered to gawk at the monster, phones and cameras raised and trying to document a once-in-a-life-time event. Unfortunately for them, I was a great buzzkill.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. PAH"You all need to get out of here, now!" I yelled as they turned to look at me. I pointed up the road as an added gesture.

"You got your pictures, now get yourselves somewhere safe! Now!" There were jeers, and while some moved, some argued with me. I couldn't hear them clearly over the sirens and general crowd, so I just repeated " Now!" again, my voice heavier. This seemed to have done some good, but not enough as a few stragglers still stood by. I couldn't exactly just throw them out.

Thankfully, some measure of support came as a few khaki-colored heavy vehicles pulled up and the soldiers driving them stepped out and began issuing similar orders. One of them approached me, beginning to speak.

"Sir, your assistance has been recognized, but you need to evacuate as well." I shook my head.

"I'm with The New Sentinels up in Charlottesville. I'm here on official jurisdiction from the Super Commission. Take it up with them."

"Sir, I believe you, but we need to reach out to them and re-verify before we let-" I pointed up at the gigantic crab that was now far closer than any reasonable person would want to even flirt with the idea of. Small tidal waves broke with each step now, clear as day.

"You think that gives a shit about your chain-of-command? Whatever guns you have aren't going to do anything. Focus on evacuation and keeping idiots off the beach. I'm here to make sure that thing doesn't start killing people."

"And what can you do, sir?" I exhaled.

"You'll see." That seemed to warrant enough of an understanding from him to start focusing on getting civilians out of the area. They were much more willing to listen to the guys in camouflage than the one in bright blue and orange. Who would have thought. If I survived this, I was going to rub that revelation in Perry's face. From there, it was just a matter of waiting. Despite the crab's size, it was slow-going. Still somewhere around maybe fifteen miles out. The lack of activity from it was assuring, at least.

It may genuinely just want to walk through the city. Perhaps I was just getting myself overhyped on any sort of connec- It raised a claw. I could feel my stomach sink as I immediately recognized that it wasn't going to stay up. FWWWWWWWWWWWSH The claw swung through the water, kicking up a wave that went halfway up its leg in height. I was practically at the dead center of where it would slam down. No time to think. Needed my body to do the work here.

Tuned out as much as I could without losing focus on the gigantic crab in front of me, rushing down into the sand. My foot dug into the soft material as I let my senses pull me to a muffled blur, and I swung out a kick that sounded like a bomb going off. An arc of sand was sent hurtling from my kick, producing a great gouge in the beach wider than I was tall. The force of all the particulates flying was enough to cushion and absorb the blow of the wave, causing it to collapse into the water.

The crab resumed its march. My mind returned to the reins just as I heard Tancred saying "Helicopters are in the area, we have visual, and Herc, what the fuck was that?" Holding onto my earpiece, I panted out the words.

"Big wave. So I made my own."

"Jesus Christ, kid. I'm watching now, and I think we have a minute to talk good and bad news."

"Bad news first."

"No Wave of Hope."

"What!?"

"Not even on this fucking planet right now, apparently some bullshit involving a wizard, I don't know, but we're no longer operating with them in mind. Good news: Forces of Nature are already on the way. They were on a mission in Atlanta and Texas Tornado is hurtling the entire team towards us now. Said he was gonna push for as fast as he could fling them as fast as they can get. Just a bit under Mach 2. That's a twenty five minute flight, we've burnt twenty already. Hold out." Easier said than done.

But it was moving slo- It was not moving slow. I was so damn caught up in the conversation that I didn't notice it went from its trudging movements to a full-on skitter. Well, it would be a skitter at a normal crab's size. At this size there was no word for that kind of rapid movement of the legs. Running back towards the city, I started yelling towards the soldiers still near the beach.

"Back up, back up!" Most of them didn't even get back in their trucks, some sort of prey-like instinct must have kicked in and compelled them to just flee on foot. Frankly, that was to my benefit. Meant I had a few options for maybe slowing the crab down. Stumbling up to one of the abandoned Humvees, I dug my fingers into the hood and whipped around, sending it flying towards the massive crustacean. Didn't even wait for the first impact, I just ran to another and hurled it as well.

By the time I finished throwing the second one, the first smashed into the face of the crab, causing it to pause its rush for a moment. Unharmed, but clearly alerted. Alerted to my dumb ass. As it turned to me, the second Humvee narrowly missed from the rotation, skidding off of its shell for a moment before falling into the water, in the same pit where my hopes and dreams just went. I was now the focus of a titanic, angry animal.

One that just took two trucks flying at terminal velocity to the face and didn't even look scratched. Every decision I had made in my life put me here. I almost considered mending things with Sam just to get a time machine put together so I could kick myself in the past. No time to dwell on that, however, as it finally breached land and was sending a city block-sized claw towards me in a thrust.

I just put everything I could into my legs to lunge out of its reach, and even at the speeds I was launching off at it nearly grazed my foot. The precision alone was harrowing. Without any attention to where I was launching, I didn't realize what that entailed until the shattered glass surrounding me called my attention to the hotel room I had just bulldozed into, smacking into a wall. As I stumbled onto my feet, I could see signs of the military taking hostile action from the crab starting to broach land.

Bright orange lights zooming through the air, slamming into it with great plumes of smoke and fire. This would be great news if their goal was to piss it off, because that's all it fucking did. Making my approach back towards the window, I stopped as I heard a sudden yelp. Pivoting on a heel, I could see a woman in a bathrobe, white as a ghost.

"Did you not hear the siren!?" I asked in befuddlement. She just stared.

"Hello!?" At that point, she pointed at her ears. Deaf. Of course! Tugging the bottom of my mask up, I mouthed out "Hearing aids!?" She nodded, rushing over to a bag by the bed and procuring a pair and putting them on. She held a hand up as she awaited them to come to life, and when they did, she started speaking.

"What's that noise!?"

"Kaiju alarm! Giant crab! Get the Hell down to whatever emergency area they keep in the building! Now-!" KRRRASH One of its claws shot out above me and into the ceiling of the hotel. Recognizing a miss, maybe from the lack of sensation of me being impaled on it, it dug its claws back out. In the same motion, the ceiling began to cave in. How poorly built was this place?

The deaf woman screamed out as it started coming down, though it died down when I managed to get my hands up and hold the ceiling from collapsing further in. This was actually some of the most strenuous pressure I'd felt on me yet, my eyes were watering and color was fading as I had to willingly give up a lot of focus just to keep the ceiling up. I was, at that specific moment, becoming very tired with the prospects of being a superhero.