The glow of the city began to fade behind them as they ventured into an area where the bioluminescent light was scarce and the shadows of the marine trenches grew denser. Shuri adjusted the power of her thrusters while letting out a sigh.
"How much further?" the princess complained, watching the residential sector fall behind. "I feel like we've been swimming for hours."
At her side, Legion, who had already returned to his human form, moved with fluid ease thanks to his suit's technology.
"Stop exaggerating, we're almost there," he replied, keeping his eyes on the radar of his interface. "It's a secret military site where they store supplies. By definition, it has to be hidden and far from civilians."
"And what exactly do they store there?"
"No idea. That information isn't in Atlantis's network. But ten minutes ago an emergency alarm was triggered and silenced almost instantly. Cameras, sensors, alerts... all switched off. If we're looking for something suspicious to investigate, this place just hit the jackpot."
Shuri nodded as she began to see an enormous metallic structure, integrated almost organically into the wall of a submarine canyon, appearing before them. What was most unsettling wasn't the size of the installation, but the total absence of activity.
As they approached the outer perimeters, both stopped, hovering between two enormous stone columns.
"This is... very suspicious," the princess commented quietly. "Not a single guard patrolling. Not even the automatic systems are running light sweeps. Everything is far too quiet."
Legion nodded.
"SID, is there any entrance we can use without having to blow the main door?"
"I have the surface construction data for the complex. I can guide you through the basic structural plans up to a certain point."
"That's enough."
Following SID's directions, they moved cautiously, hugging the shadows of the structure to avoid any possible complications.
After a few minutes of stealthy swimming, they reached a maintenance area at the lower section, where a hidden service hatch remained slightly ajar, revealing a dark tunnel leading directly into the heart of the complex.
Legion exchanged a look with Shuri through their visors.
"Stay close."
Shuri simply responded with a firm gesture of her hand.
"Relax, grandpa," Shuri said with confidence. "You've got a super genius on your side and you can turn into... whatever you decide to be. This will be a walk in the park."
Legion didn't share her optimism.
"Don't get overconfident — we still don't know what we're up against," he warned as they moved carefully forward.
The moment they crossed the threshold of the hatch, the silence vanished abruptly, swallowed by the thunder of battle.
The hangar was chaos — bubbles, energy lights and clashing metal. Before them, a commando of warriors in advanced pressure suits — technology that Shuri recognized immediately as their own — was locked in a fight to the death against the city's security forces.
"Those are ours!" Shuri exclaimed, and before Legion could process the scene, the princess had already propelled herself into the middle of the crossfire.
"Shuri, wait! We don't know what's going on!" the hero shouted, reaching out to grab her, but she was faster.
Shuri plunged into the combat frenzy with a defiant smile behind her visor. Two Atlantean soldiers fixed on her and charged with their spears, but the princess simply spun on her own axis, letting the tips pass by. Completing the rotation, she fired a sonic wave from her gauntlets that struck both squarely, sending them crashing into some containers with enough force to dent the metal.
Without stopping, a third attacker tried to seize her from behind. Shuri reacted quickly — she used the water's momentum to propel herself backward, connecting a direct elbow to the soldier's face and finishing him off with a kick charged with kinetic energy that left him out of commission.
Two more Atlanteans came in from the flanks, trying to corner her. Shuri reached into her belt and released a pair of small spheres that began to hum. On activating, the spheres released a chained electric discharge that paralyzed the warriors, leaving them drifting aimlessly while their armor sparked.
"These guys are really weak!" she boasted through the communicator, though Legion was still trying to reach her while dispatching other enemies.
Suddenly, the last two soldiers of the group positioned themselves behind a supply barricade and raised their energy rifles. The water lit up with the glow of shots heading straight for her.
Shuri didn't flinch — she crossed her arms in front of her face and a vibrant violet energy shield deployed from her gauntlets, absorbing the impacts with a hum.
With one motion, the young woman dropped the shield and, in the same gesture, threw two of her vibranium daggers. The weapons cut through the water leaving a trail of bubbles before embedding themselves right between the shooters' feet. A second later, the daggers detonated, sending them flying.
Two more guards emerged from the shadows to ambush her from the side, but Legion, now transformed into his Atlantean form, fell on them. He grabbed them by the shoulders and slammed their heads together with a sharp crack.
He released them and let their bodies sink slowly, completely knocked out.
Shuri turned toward him, ready to crack a joke, but Legion raised his hand to silence her. He stared at his palms for a second, closing his fists to feel the pressure of the water between his fingers.
"Sea-Quake," he murmured.
"'Sea-Quake'?" Shuri tilted her head. "Well, at least it's short. We can find something better later."
At that moment, an explosion at the far end of the complex made the entire place vibrate. A steel wall was blown apart and from among the bubbles and sediment two figures emerged locked in combat.
The Atlantean leader was a mountain of a man — a gigantic figure covered in scars who wielded an enormous, heavy anchor as if it were a toy. His opponent was a man in an immaculate white tactical suit, moving with agility around his opponent.
That unknown fighter fought with astonishing aggression. He used vibranium claws to propel himself off the metal walls and launch himself at the giant, leaving trails of violet light in the water with each slash.
The massive Atlantean soldier roared and threw a punch that the white-suited warrior barely managed to dodge, feeling the turbulence of the water brush past him.
"Damned surface dwellers!" the giant bellowed. "You think your trinkets can match the strength of the ocean! You're nothing but a weakling!"
The man in white stabilized himself with his thrusters and came back for more. He dodged an anchor swing that would have split a pillar and, as he passed alongside, stuck three mini-explosives to the giant's chest. The blasts shook the colossus, but the man just stepped back a couple of meters, laughing while brushing off the remnants of the detonation with his hand.
"That barely tickled me," the Atlantean mocked, lunging forward again.
The unknown fighter didn't retreat. He activated an electric charge in his claws and threw himself into an exchange of blows.
The white-suited warrior was faster, connecting three or four strikes for every one of the giant's, but that man's endurance was inhuman. Every time the man in white was cornered, he had to use an energy shield to absorb impacts that would have destroyed him.
Shuri, who hadn't taken her eyes off the fight, suddenly recognized that person. Her heart lurched.
"BROTHER!" she exclaimed, stunned to see her half-brother here.
The white-suited warrior, who was none other than Hunter, made the mistake of turning his head upon hearing her. In this place, her voice was the last thing he expected to hear.
"Shuri? What are you doing here?" he managed to say, losing his concentration for a second.
The giant Atlantean was merciless. He seized the opening and delivered a devastating blow directly to Hunter's helmet. The crack of metal rang out and Hunter shot backward like a projectile, slamming into a support column. His body floated inert while his suit began to spark and emit bursts of bubbles.
"NO!" Shuri screamed, as a Wakandan soldier quickly moved toward Hunter. She swam at full speed, grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him behind a shattered bulkhead to protect him while the giant began swimming toward them with the anchor raised, savoring the moment.
Seeing Hunter floating inert, Shuri felt a void in her stomach that quickly filled with a searing heat. She no longer cared about the sights, the discoveries, the mission, or the diplomatic consequences. That brute had just struck her brother, and he was going to pay dearly for it.
"I'll tear you apart!" she screamed, but her voice was lost in the din of the battle.
Legion tried to move closer to cover her, but eight Atlanteans descended on him at once, blocking his path and forcing him to defend himself.
Shuri was alone against the giant, but she didn't feel at a disadvantage. On the contrary, she felt charged — she was going to make that big lout regret ever laying a hand on her brother.
The colossus roared, throwing a swipe that displaced a massive wall of water.
Shuri stayed focused.
Just before the hand reached her, she pressed a button on her forearm and activated a short-range hologram generator. In the blink of an eye, three identical versions of Shuri appeared at different angles. The giant, confused, closed his fist around an empty image that dissolved into blue lights.
The real Shuri was already beneath him. She pulled a small capsule from her belt and crushed it against the Atlantean's knee joint. It was a gravitational anchor. On activating, the colossus's leg was dragged toward the hangar floor with a force of several tons, forcing him to drop to one knee and let out a growl of frustration.
"Did you think this was a fistfight?" the princess taunted. "How primitive."
The giant tried to rise, but Shuri gave him no respite.
She deployed a pair of micro-drones from her back that began buzzing around the Atlantean's head, firing small lasers that, while not penetrating his skin, blinded him and irritated his eyes. While he swiped at the air trying to catch the drones, Shuri propelled herself toward his chest.
She adjusted her gauntlets to maximum frequency and struck the Atlantean's chest armor. Instead of an explosion, the gauntlets emitted a constant ultrasonic vibration. The metal of the Atlantean's armor began to resonate violently, sending shockwaves directly into the giant's internal organs.
"Damned little...!" the Atlantean roared, managing to wrench his leg free from the anchor with a brutal yank.
He tried to catch her in a bear hug, but Shuri activated her suit's zero-friction coating. The water around her seemed to slide and she slipped between his arms like an eel, escaping without him being able to hold her.
"How dare you touch my brother?" Shuri reproached him, moving back a couple of meters. "I'm going to show you that Wakanda's intelligence is centuries ahead of your brute force, you aquatic caveman."
She pulled out a pair of cryogenic pellets and launched them with precision at the water intake openings of the giant's lateral gills.
On contact, the pellets released a burst of liquid nitrogen that created instant ice blocks at the joints of his neck. The Atlantean began to gasp, feeling the cold numbing his muscles and making breathing difficult.
Taking advantage of the colossus being stunned and struggling to pull off the ice, Shuri charged her gauntlets with all the kinetic energy her suit had stored.
"TAKE THIS!"
She propelled herself forward and connected a double impact to his solar plexus.
The shockwave was so powerful that the water around them boiled for a second. The giant shot backward, crashing into a row of metal cages that groaned under his weight.
Shuri floated before him, her gauntlets smoking and her gaze fixed. She had pushed him back, humiliated him and had him against the ropes.
She stayed there for a few seconds, watching the giant's body lying motionless in the sediment.
She let out a breathless laugh — more from the adrenaline rush than anything else — and raised her arms, closing her fists in a gesture of victory.
"Told you, old man!" she exclaimed, turning toward her companion. "Walk in the park! There's nothing that Wakanda's ingenuity can't—"
Legion, who had just shaken off the last of his attackers, turned toward her with wide eyes.
Behind the princess, the enormous mountain of muscle was rising to his feet with a terrifying slowness, letting out a growl that made the water vibrate.
"Shuri, behind you!"
She reacted on pure instinct. She spun around just as the giant's fist — the size of an engine block — came crashing down on her with renewed fury. Shuri barely had time to cross her arms and activate an emergency violet shield. The impact was brutal — though the shield held the physical force, the shockwave sent her flying through the hangar.
Legion swam at full speed, cutting through the water with his fins, and managed to catch her mid-flight before she slammed into a steel wall.
He held her firmly as they both skidded through the current from the momentum.
"Shuri? Shuri!" he called, shaking her slightly to check her condition.
She coughed, releasing a trail of bubbles, and brought a hand to her helmet.
"That... was cheating, I wasn't looking," she murmured.
Legion looked around and the outlook turned grim.
Without their leader, the Wakandan soldiers were losing their cohesion, being pushed back by the mass of Atlantean warriors that kept arriving.
Then, a lateral explosion blew a gap in one of the structures at the far end, revealing what had been hidden behind the torn metal.
In the darkness of that hole, Legion saw an eye. A massive eye — the size of a shield — staring at them with a gigantic vertical pupil.
"Oh, hell," the hero muttered under his breath.
In the distance, the soldier carrying Hunter was retreating under the protection of her comrades. Legion saw her make a rapid series of hand signals toward the rest of the Wakandan soldiers.
Immediately after, the woman pressed a device on her tactical bracelet.
A metallic, screeching sound ran through the entire complex. The steel walls began to slide open, revealing that behind them there were no military supplies — only rows of rusted, reinforced bars.
"This isn't a warehouse," Legion said, staring at the place with dread. "It's a damned monster prison."
The bars began to open with a thunderclap of old metal. The Wakandans wasted no time and began evacuating toward the emergency exits. The giant Atlantean also realized what was happening — he watched as the shadows inside the cells began to stir and, for the first time, panic crossed his face.
"RETREAT!" the colossus screamed at his men. "GET OUT OF HERE, NOW!"
The chaos was absolute. Both sides forgot the fight and began swimming desperately toward the openings in the structure.
"Can you move?" Sea-Quake asked Shuri, helping her to straighten up.
"I'll need... a moment," she replied, still recovering her balance.
Legion didn't wait.
He took her in his arms and propelled himself with all his strength toward the exit. The first creatures were already out. They were deformed beasts covered in thick scales with too many rows of teeth.
Some began tearing each other apart in a frenzy of hunger, while others hunted anything that moved. Legion narrowly dodged the tentacle of something that looked like a misshapen squid and skimmed past the jaws of a blind creature that tried to bite his leg.
They managed to get out through a hole made by one of the earlier explosions.
Legion put distance between them and the complex until they reached a safe range and stopped to look back. The complex let out horrible metallic shrieks as the creatures forced their way through the walls to escape. The water turned red within seconds as the monsters killed each other in an orgy of blood and bubbles.
Then, the structure collapsed entirely. Four gigantic shadows emerged from the wreckage, towering above everything else.
A colossal turtle, its shell covered in irregular spikes and a serrated beak that seemed capable of crushing a ship's hull.
A prehistoric shark with several rows of teeth protruding from a mouth that never fully closed, its grayish skin covered in scars.
A giant squid whose tentacles looked like chains of muscle ending in hooked claws that writhed with terrifying force.
A translucent eel — so long it seemed to have no end, its body charged with electricity that illuminated its internal organs.
Unlike the other beasts that were dispersing or fighting among themselves, these four were different.
Sea-Quake watched as the four silhouettes disappeared into the ocean's gloom. They weren't scattering or looking for caves to hide in — they were swimming with far too precise a direction.
"Tell me they're not heading where I think they are, SID," Legion murmured, a knot in his throat.
"Then I'm sorry to confirm it, sir," the AI responded through the Omnitrix. "Based on their trajectory, they are heading directly toward the civilian sector of Atlantis."
"Puta que lo repario (Son of a bitch)" he swore, and released Shuri.
She was already managing to stabilize on her own, though she still moved with some unsteadiness from the blow.
"Listen, we need to split up," Legion said, turning toward her. "I'm going to try to buy some time and slow them down. You go up as fast as you can and give the warning. They need to evacuate the people and get prepared."
Shuri grabbed his arm firmly.
"Are you out of your mind? Did you see the size of those things? And there are four of them! Don't be an idiot, Legion. The city has its own defenses and thousands of soldiers — let them handle it."
Legion shook his head and pulled free of her grip.
"By the time the soldiers react, those things will have already killed hundreds. If it were just one I'd have no doubt they could handle it, but now..." he replied, already starting to propel himself forward. "I'll buy them time, you give the warning. Move!"
He began to swim with all his strength, leaving Shuri behind, but quickly realized it wasn't enough.
This Atlantean form — Sea-Quake — was useful for fighting in enclosed spaces or using his hands, but in open water he was too slow.
He didn't have the speed to catch them or the raw power to grab the attention of something that large.
At this rate I'll never catch them.
Without thinking twice, he struck the Omnitrix symbol.
The green flash lit up the darkness of the abyss for an instant as his body changed.
It was Ripjaws's turn.
With a single powerful motion of his tail, Legion felt the difference.
Now this is speed.
He cut through the water with ease, becoming a silver projectile that began closing the gap with the beasts within seconds. Every tail stroke brought him closer to the wake left by the shark and the turtle.
As he gained ground, a thought ran through his mind as he clenched his jaw.
I only have one change left — one last round after this one. You'd better use it well, Nicolás.
=====
HEYYYY, HOW'S EVERYONE DOING? HOPE YOU'RE ALL WELL!
PHEW, WRITING GOT A BIT COMPLICATED HAHA — PLUS I STARTED WORKING OUT, YOU KNOW? GETTING BACK TO MY PRIME 🫣 — EVERYTHING HURTS HAHAHA.
BUT ANYWAY, AS YOU CAN SEE, THINGS GOT A LITTLE OUT OF CONTROL. WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A MILITARY STORAGE SITE TURNED OUT TO BE A PRISON FOR AQUATIC BEASTS, AND NOW FOUR OF THEM ARE SWIMMING STRAIGHT TOWARD ATLANTIS. WHAT WILL OUR PROTAGONIST DO WITH THIS SITUATION? NERVES OF STEEL, PLUS IMAGINE HAVING THOSE THINGS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU — NOPE, ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED.
ALSO, THE PRINCESS SHOWED A LITTLE OF JUST HOW CAPABLE SHE IS — UNFORTUNATELY SHE'S FAR TOO OVERCONFIDENT, WHICH MADE HER LET HER GUARD DOWN BELIEVING THE FIGHT WAS OVER.
AND NOW — WHAT THE HELL WAS HUNTER DOING THERE? WHO IS THAT ENORMOUS ATLANTEAN HE WAS UP AGAINST?
REMEMBER THAT IF YOU'D LIKE TO LEND ME AN EXTRA HAND, THERE'S PATREON:
patreon.com/EmptyTag
AS ALWAYS, I APPRECIATE ALL YOUR COMMENTS AND SUPPORT.
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES, A KISS 😘