Opticon E-Book

Jesse Wilson

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Mythology is wrong. Everything anyone knows is an elaborate lie.

The war against the Titans required more than just the power of the Gods. Zeus could not beat the Titans on their own, so he created a weapon: twelve weapons known as Yokaiju. Weapons that worked flawlessly to defeat the primordial powers. But to do so, they needed to be alive.

Once victory was secure, the weapons decided they didn't need to serve anyone and turned against their creators. In a last ditch effort, Zeus has the Opticon created using the powers of all the gods on the final battlefield. He uses it to steal their souls and secure victory at the highest cost imaginable.

Eons later, the Yokaiju's souls are somehow released back into the modern world, and they want nothing but revenge. Zeus obtains the Opticon and chooses a champion. Samantha Waters. A convict and unlikely warrior, she is the last human with divine blood on earth, in the battle against nearly unstoppable power.

Now, the Opticon, with a will of its own, and a human who's never done anything for anyone, must work together against Yokaiju, Gods and other cosmic forces in a last ditch effort to save all creation - or die trying.

Leseprobe

OPTICON

JESSE WILSON

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

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About the Author

Copyright (C) 2020 Jesse Wilson

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Edited by Felicity Hall

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

CHAPTERONE

The battlefield, as it was, had old scars created by primordial powers that had been locked in battle with the Gods, however, the Gods themselves did not have any hope to defeat the Titans on their own. Zeus and the other sky fathers of the cosmic families had created twelve weapons of unimaginable power to help get the job done.

They were effective and vanquished their enemies with an unrelenting force that had never been seen before. Unfortunately, the weapons they created were also alive, and they could dream and think for themselves. After the last enemy titan was defeated. They wondered. They wondered if there was any good reason to serve inferior beings.

They didn’t come up with one. Now, the second Great War raged. The former Titan fortress they called Othrys stood miles high, black and burned with old strikes of power. It loomed behind the army of Gods who were making their last stand against the weapons made to help them fight.

“You know, there had to be better ways of beating the Titans,” Hades said as a ball of golden fire sailed over his head and crashed into the fortress behind them, exploding into a billion sparks. “Yeah, but this was the most effective way, trust me, I know what I am doing, brother. We had to create help if we were going to have any chance of winning,” Zeus replied to him, tired of repeating himself at this point to everyone. Hades just wanted to rub it in while he was still alive to do it.

Eleven of the beasts were marching in their direction. Their footsteps were shaking the ground continuously. When the roar of their leader came over the battlefield, Zeus knew that they were about to attack. The old white armor he wore started to crackle with blue energy as he prepared for what was coming next.

“Hades, make sure everyone is ready and make sure no one breaks the line. This plan is really important,” Zeus said. Hades looked at him, his dull red eyes shifted to the right. “You just want to make sure Ares doesn’t do something stupid, right? So, I’m a babysitter,” he replied, annoyed at the idea. “You got it,” Zeus replied, and Hades just sighed. “Fine,” he replied and disappeared into the crowd behind them.

Zeus turned his eyes back the beast who had just arrived, and even now at this late meeting and their potential deaths imminent he still couldn’t help but admire his work.

“It’s about time he showed up,” Zeus said in response to that horrid shriek that was still fading away. The leader of the beasts appeared in front of the other eleven. He was a skeleton that would later be the inspiration for every bipedal dinosaur to exist in the future. The beast had long arms with hands that ended in claws. A skull with the shape of a carnivorous beast, a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth and empty, black eye sockets. It was completely consumed with white and cold spectral flames.

“Zeus, I can’t believe you convinced us to make these things, what kind of maniac are you?” Odin asked as his blood ran cold, gripping his spear tight in his left hand. He didn’t mean to ask that out loud but now that the moment had come, the fear got the better of him.

“Ha, Odin. How quick you turn your opinion when the tides turn, stop being so pathetic and get ready to fight,” Zeus replied to him and sent a massive bolt of red lightning across the dark green skies with a thought. “We’re here, aren’t we?” Ra asked him and winced at the sight at the twelve living weapons that lumbered in their direction.

“Yes, we are,” Izanagi., who was standing next to him with his blade drawn, replied.

“It’s time to get to work,” Zeus said and motioned to the other leaders to follow him as he flew into the sky. Odin, Ra and Izanagi floated into the air and followed him ahead of the army of gods that waited below. “Do they have names, I never bothered to ask,” Izanagi said and Zeus nodded. “They do,” he replied. Izanagi in his bright red armor flew up to Zeus. The King of the Olympians turned to face the army below.

“Oh great, it’s speech time,” Ra muttered under his breath as glowing armor appeared around his body. “At least it’ll be short,” Odin replied as blue armor appeared around him.

“Today is either the last day we have, or the beginning of a new age of peace. We have to fight to survive. I know I have made a grave mistake, but I hope to fix that now. These, Yokaiju, have to be stopped. Hold nothing back. This is the last battle of a long, and terrible war. I need you, we all need one another. Let the heavens reign now and forever!” Zeus shouted out to the Gods on the ground in a voice that echoed like thunder.

“Not much for inspirational speeches, is he?” Thor asked Poseidon, lifting his hammer off his left shoulder. “Nope, not so much. On the other hand, at least it’s short. You should have seen him a couple of ages ago. I swear he wouldn’t shut up trying to inspire us to fight the Titans,” he responded, thankful for a short speech.

Thor couldn’t wait to fight these savage beasts, they were everything he ever dreamed about and really, the only thing he had dreamed about for a long time. He gripped his hammer tightly in anticipation.

He had always the thought the Titans were weaklings and didn’t know what all the fuss was about; however, Odin forbade him to fight in the war. He had no true idea how terrible they were and how many lives were lost in the war before the Yokaiju were created.

Thor had no idea how much Odin and Frigg protected him from the horrors they unleashed on the Gods. He long remembered the misery brought down on them when a titan whose name he never knew, killed Baldur. Ever since, Thor wanted to fight someone, anyone. These beasts would have to do.

“And with that said, let’s get to why we all came here,” Odin shouted, turned around to face the enemy. “You know the plan, you know what we need to do, let’s get it done,” Ra shouted to them and the rest turned as well.

“Follow my lead,” Ares shouted and started running first before anyone else did. “No, wait for the…” Athena tried to stop him, but it was too late, he had already started running in that direction. The Olympian raised his mighty sword and ran forward, with his burning shield in front of him.

“Damn it, Hades, you literally had one job,” Zeus said and his eyes went wide with panic. His kid was ruining everything.

The gods, eager for battle, knew someone was going to signal the attack, but without seeing who actually did it, it was impossible to really know who issued the command.

Hades watched his nephew lead the charge. Ares had sprung out to attack before he could get to him. “That boy was dropped on his head more than once as a child, I swear,” he said to himself. He lifted his staff, held it in both hands. “Yep,” Poseidon replied to him knowingly with a nod as the other gods began to follow him out into battle.

Ares stood at one hundred meters tall, his sword extended another forty. He leaped into the air and swung his blade as hard as he could. The diamond sword landed on the deep red and stone skin of Zimri and shattered on impact. The red gargoyle stopped in his tracks as it looked down at its ankle, looking at the Olympian. Zimri spread his blood-red wings casually as Ares looked up at the towering beast.

“Uh,” he said, at a loss for words as the beast’s skin started on fire. Ares raised his shield just in time. The force of the fire alone sent him flying backwards into the sky, hundreds of feet and away from Zimri with ease.

Eros flew through the sky and caught him. “Dad, you’re an idiot,” he said to him. “Put me down, boy, there is a battle to win,” Ares replied with a growl. Eros dropped him immediately and took his bow out. He took aim at the red, burning gargoyle, and pulled back his string. A pure white arrow with a red tip appeared in it and he fired. It was a bright red comet -like projectile that approached Zimri, then it melted away before it even touched him.

Behind the gargoyle shaped Zimri, others got closer. Eleven more nightmares that made Eros cringe. “If you’re going to do something, now’s the time,” Neith screamed as she and Artemis fired their arrows at Zimri. Unlike Eros’, these arrows penetrated the fire and stuck in Zimri’s chest, but they were nothing more than tiny slivers of metal in a vast ocean of fire.

“This isn’t working,” Neith said and pointed out the obvious. “Yeah, do you have any other ideas?” Artemis asked her. “None,” Neith replied but gazed in horror as Zimri opened its gaping maw and let loose a deep red blast of flame in their direction that engulfed everything they could see.

Hermes’ eyes widened as he saw this wall of fire coming at them. No one was fast enough to get out of the way and to be honest, he wasn’t sure there was an escape path to be had. It wouldn’t stop him from trying. He sped as fast as he could and started getting Neith, Artemis and other Gods out of the way of the path of the destruction wave coming in their direction. To him everything was moving at a snail’s pace. Thor had a smile on his face half hidden by his long red hair, and when Hermes got to him, his giant hammer was slowly spinning around by its strap on his hand.

“Barbarian fool is gonna get himself cooked alive,” he said as he grabbed hold of him and Poseidon to try and get them out of the way. He realized even his incredible speed would not be enough. The wall of fire was going to engulf all three of them and countless others.

Agni and Sol dived out of the air in front of him. Sol was living flame, her body was bright orange and yellow, always shifting. Agni was a dual headed giant. One half of his armor was green, the other was blue. “Get them out of here,” Sol said to Hermes as she stretched her arms out to divert the fire. Agni did his best to help as he did the same but wasn’t so interested in talking. The incredible wall of fire bent straight up into the green sky.

They didn’t have any time to warn anyone. Nike, who was flying through the sky, got caught in the explosion. She crossed her silver armored arms in a weak attempt to protect herself. Her white wings were seared black then disappeared, and she fell toward the ground. Sol’s burning body dimmed, because the amount of power it took to divert one blast drained her. Agni caught her and the two of them collapsed to the ground together. “Good work,” Agni’s two voices said in unison. Sol was too weak to respond and it took most of his energy to simply speak.

“I got you,” Thanatos said and grabbed Nike before she could hit the ground. She was glowing red hot and her armor was melting. “You showed up, it’s good to see you,” she replied weakly but never let her sword go. “There is no way I could let you burn. We need one another,” he replied to her with a smile and continued. “Mom’s here too,” he said and Nike was surprised.

“Whole family showed up, I’m surprised we could get them to come, maybe they can help,” Nike replied, but the conversation was cut short. Malpirgin screamed out of the sky flying over the battle field, her bright green wings flapped with such force it knocked Thanatos out of the sky with ease. “Hold on,” he said as he tried to control the descent towards the ground. Nike refused to close her eyes as the two of them fell.

The situation, despite all the power gathered here, was unwinnable. Athena knew this. She stood there in the battle and was looking around, the Yokaiju were surrounding them. Taking their time. This was a sadistic game to them and she knew it. Athena took off towards the sky, towards her father.

“Hey, we can’t win here. Look around,” she said to Zeus in a panic. “Child, the Gods are the masters. I created these weapons, I can destroy them,” he said, and hurled at thunderbolt at the same time. “No, you don’t understand. They are surrounding us, look for yourself,” she shouted back at him over the roar of one of the beasts. He was only paying attention to their leader. He was confident that these weapons wouldn’t have much of a chance. Zeus had underestimated their power.

Zeus finally relented and he saw the weapons closing in from all sides. Somehow, in a matter of minutes, they had repositioned themselves and hardly anyone had noticed what was going on.

This mistake was going to get them all killed. Victory over the Titans, the price had been too high. Zeus couldn’t put the power back where he found it. The nasty taste of something was forming in his brain for the first time, the taste of regret.

“Sound the retreat, I have a plan. Also, I know it’s not your job but can you get this to Hephaestus, tell him to build it as fast as he can,” Zeus said and a scroll appeared in his hand, he handed it to her. Athena took it and started to open it. “No, do not open it. It’s not for you. Please hurry, we don’t have much time, find him,” Zeus said and turned back only to face the leader of the weapons approaching him.

“You gave us life. You made us for a purpose, we are the powerful among you. This universe and everything in it, is ours,” the leader projected its wicked voice into his mind, the voice was painful to hear. “I created you to help take down the primordial Titans. You did, now stand down. You belong to me Yokaiju, you always have,” Zeus said out loud. The beast tilted his burning skull in confusion.

“You call us that. I will take the name for myself, it is the only thing you ever gave to me,” the beast responded to him.

Zeus stood at one hundred and fifty meters tall, but in front of this colossal thing, he was barely as big as Yokaiju’s massive, empty eye socket. “Well. I have regrets, lots of them. Most of all I regret not giving you an off switch,” Zeus said as he swallowed his pride. “I imagine you do. Thank you for bringing all of the resistance, most of it, here to one spot. We will hunt down the other celestials for as long as it takes,” Yokaiju replied to him.

Athena flew through the chaos, and to her surprise, finding the blacksmith was easy. He was building warriors made out of shining metal by slamming his forge hammer into the ground with one strike, creating them out of nothing. “Heph, I need you,” Athena shouted and he stopped in mid swing. “Oh, now you need me. Mother throws me out, once they learn I can make stuff then I’m special again,” he said under his breath. She ignored him and got to the point.

“Dad says you need to build this, I don’t know what it is but we are all going to die here so it better be special,” she said and threw the scroll to him. He caught it with his left hand and opened it. The minute he saw what was on the shining scroll he gasped. “I couldn’t,” he said to himself in shock.

“What, what can’t you do?” Athena asked him as the ground shook beneath their feet. “Zeus, I, it’s too complicated to explain, just know I’m sorry,” he replied to her and threw the scroll to the ground, he had memorized the plans in an instant. Athena was confused and walked to the sparking scroll on the black earth, but as she picked it up it crumbled to dust.

The cosmic blacksmith raised his forge hammer high above his head and a strange stone appeared on the ground, it was glowing bright gold and green. Athena had no understanding of any of this, she stood back as the massive hammer was slammed against the mystical stone, she watched it change shape under the force and become something incredibly useless for the situation they were in. Hephaestus picked up the glowing blue hot arm brace.

As he did it cooled and turned into a dull golden piece of jewelry. He held it as if the thing would bite him. “Our father is desperate,” he said and handed it to her. Another explosion in the distance lit the green sky up in the distance.

“What good is a bracelet in this mess?” she asked him and her grey eyes flared with anger and confusion. He smiled as if all hope had finally been lost along with her father’s mind. “Sister, this is the beginning of the end. Give it to him while there is still time,” he said and held it out carefully. Her spear disappeared and she took it in her hand. The second she grasped it, it stung her skin as she held it. She winced in pain but held on.

He smashed his hammer into the ground to create yet another golem half his size that ran into battle. “I would have brought a whole army but I was forbidden to do so,” he said in annoyance. He had questions, but there were no answers. Where were the hundred handed warriors, the cyclops that helped in the war with the Titans? None of this made any sense, was this the plan all along?

Athena sped into the air to return to her father but was horrified to see that Yokaiju held him in his left hand as if he were nothing more than one of her tiny statues.

“And now the time of the Gods is as short as it was useless, it is our turn” the burning skeletal dragon said into his mind and started to squeeze the life out of him. “Prometheus, now!” Zeus screamed with his last breath for help to his last Titan ally who still stood at his side in the war who remained free. He’d hoped that he wouldn’t have to do this.

“A titan, here?” Yokaiju asked and looked to his right a towering figure dressed in dark green armor appeared in a flash of bright light. Prometheus smashed his right fist into the burning dragon’s skull and knocked him away. The impact the fist made was enough to make Athena raise her shield to protect herself from the shockwave. Zeus used this chance to escape. “Thanks,” he said as he made some distance in-between him and the living weapon.

Prometheus stood just as tall as the weapon designed to fight him and he tried to press the attack when from behind another weapon wrapped its black tentacles around his arms to hold him back.

“Damn you Lysis,” Zeus shouted and launched twin thunderbolts into Lysis’s black skin, but to his horror they did nothing but spread out harmlessly. The titan struggled to get free but a red blast of flame struck him in the chest and knocked him to his knees. The shockwave of the collapse caused any god still standing to lose their balance if they didn’t prepare for it.

“Father, I have this, whatever it is,” Athena rushed to him and threw the thing to him. Zeus caught it. “I knew I could depend on you. The craftsmanship is perfect as usual,” he said as he put the thing on, wincing in pain. “What is that thing?” she asked him and he winced. “The last resort,” he replied and shot up into the air.

“Forgive me,” he said quietly to himself and raised his arm to the sky, the bracelet set on fire and shot several hundred golden beams down into the crowd below, one for each god. Zeus summoned all of the strength he had and used the weapon to pull the spark of their life out of their bodies. The whole process only took a few seconds. Zeus watched as all of his family, all of the other gods fell dead to the ground.

“You killed all of them for me. I guess you’re more afraid than I thought you were, thanks,” Yokaiju said to him. Zeus floated back down to stare them in the face. “I have all of their powers now. I am the ultimate,” he said. Now his skin was glowing bright blue, his eyes were pure white and electricity crackled around him constantly. He pointed at Yokaiju and knocked him to the ground. The burning beast hit the ground so hard that its bones cracked to pieces.

“You will all be dismantled, you have no purpose. I will tear you all apart,” Zeus shouted, but he turned around to see Zimri approaching the fallen Gods, his breath of fire ready to be unleashed.

“No,” he said and his eyes widened. There was no time to lose, this power was going to be used up very fast. “Your souls are mine,” Zeus said the only thing he could think of and raised his left fist up. The bracelet burned with power and shot out twelve dark red beams of power into the weapons immediately.

“What are you doing, this isn’t possible,” Yokaiju screamed in pain. A second later the red beams retracted. At the end of those twelve beams were the souls of the weapons. The bodies of the monsters fell to the ground, and in order to protect the ones he stole from he blasted Zimri and the others away so they didn’t fall and crush them all into oblivion.

“This war is over,” Zeus said and sighed in relief. He used the arm bracelet to return the sparks of life to the fallen gods. One by one they began to awaken, and about the same time they realized what must have happened. All they could see around them were fallen giants; the war with the Yokaiju was over and no one was quite sure how.

“What did you do?” Odin asked as he used his spear to stand up. “I realized we couldn’t win, so I used a plan, the plan I should have used to begin with to avoid all of this,” he replied and Ra shook his head. “Answers, now,” Ra demanded.

“I had the Opticon constructed. I had to borrow all of your energy to make it work, sorry about that, but as long as this thing remains intact the souls of the Yokaiju will remain trapped within. However, the price of victory was high. I know you can all feel it. Our energy, once eternal, is already beginning to fade. I had to use the strongest part of our celestial sparks to trap them forever,” Zeus explained to them and a low murmur began to spread over the gods.

Prometheus lumbered over to the crowd and shrank down to their size as he did so. “I have a plan, I’ve been working on something that my brethren laughed at. However, I think you lot will be much more understanding,” he said to them. “What do you know, Titan. You should be banished with the rest of your kind,” Hades said angrily towards him.

“Stay your hand my emotional friend, perhaps he has a solution to our problem,” Thor replied, still out of breath. Hades looked at him. “Fine,” he agreed, at least for now.

The Titan’s armor disappeared, revealing white clothing, and he held out his hand. “I present to you something I call humanity,” he said and he opened his hand revealing two clay, featureless figures. No one who was close enough to see was impressed at the figures.

“What good are such tiny things to us?” Loki asked, finally speaking up holding his left arm that had been burned in the battle. “They are not much to look at now, but my plan is to for us to make this barren, wasted place into a living world. All of us can work together and create, control our own regions for these humans. We can take care of them and in return they will worship you. They will be our new power source. As long as they know about us, we will never fade from this world,” Prometheus said, and no one was quite sure how that was going to work.

“Very well, I think this is the best course of action; what could go wrong? But we’d better hurry because after all, our power is running out and this world isn’t going to build itself,” Zeus said to them all. No one seemed that enthusiastic about the plan, or about working. But all they had ever known up to this point was pain and being the playthings at the whims of the Titans. It would be good to create something for a change. The future looked bright from here, even if the Gods had to forge a world from, how they saw it, next to nothing.

CHAPTERTWO

Three in the morning, and the stormy Indian Ocean raged around the oil tanker, Lapiz. The storm had been raging for three hours and its stubborn Captain refused to yield to safe harbor.

“Sir, this is one of the dumbest choices you’ve ever made,” his first mate said, holding on to a rail for his life. With each wave, it felt like the massive ship was just going to roll over. “Ford, every single time we hit a rough patch you say the same thing. How many times have I let you die?” Charlie asked him with a wicked smile.

“I’m not dead yet but couldn’t you just once not challenge the ocean, we can’t get lucky all the time,” First mate Ford replied to him and tried his best to peer out of the window but all he could see was darkness, waves and the wind-beaten rain.

“I’ve sailed in every ocean on this planet. This is just another storm. If we waited for the weather to clear we’d be late with the oil. Could you imagine the chaos if we were late?” Charlie asked and laughed about it. Ford just rolled his eyes as the sky flashed with a bolt of lightning and the ocean was struck in the distance.

“Did you see that, it’s not every day you see a strike so close,” Ford said, and was awestruck for a second. All of his years on the ocean, and he still found things to be impressed with. “Yeah, I saw it, but so what? It happens thousands of times a day all over the world who cares?” Charlie asked as he kept his cold eyes straight ahead. While he didn’t see the energy hit the ocean, the light did illuminate something in the distance - something he knew couldn’t be real.

It had to be just a trick of the storm and because of that he didn’t want to alarm William or anyone else.

Ford noticed the Captain was slowing down anyway and starting to tense up. “Hey, what’s going on. Are you alright?” Ford asked him and Charlie just smiled a bit. “Just fine, William,” he replied almost nervously. “No, seriously, what is it, you’re making me nervous,” Ford asked. Charlie had rarely ever called him by his first name, he was just a last name kind of guy towards everyone. It was a habit he picked up in the United States Navy a lifetime ago.

“Look out there in front of us - I thought I saw what I swore was an Umibozu,” he replied and swallowed. “A what?” Ford asked him, for he didn’t have any idea of what such a thing was, he’d never heard of it before. “It’s an old Japanese ghost story. Giant ghosts of shipwreck victims whose graves have never been tended. The version of the story that always scared me the most was the ship smashing spirits that would always be looking to drown people, to make more of its kind to do the same,” Charlie replied. He wasn’t sure how accurate that was but his time in the Japanese waters with the crews, stories would be told late at night - stories of horrible things.

“That’s a pretty scary story but ghosts aren’t real, I think we’re—” Ford never got to finish his sentence when the massive ocean tanker ran into something. The sudden jolt knocked both of them forward and brought the ship to a halt. “What did you hit?” Ford asked after getting his senses back.

“Nothing, there isn’t anything out here, this ocean is one of the deepest in the world,” he replied, trying to catch his breath.

Was it possible they were blown off course in the storm and didn’t realize it? According to the radar, that wasn’t the case. Charlie began to panic; a mistake like this would be the end of his ocean shipping days.

He picked up the radio. “I need eyes out there, I know the weather sucks so be careful. I have to know how bad the damage is. Brosco, Alders, you’re up,” he said into the radio.

“Got it sir, there’ll be a report soon,” a gruff voice responded to him. Now all they could do is make sure the rest of the crew was unharmed and wait to see how bad the situation really was. There might still be a chance to fix this after all, depending on how bad the impact was.

The two men put on their rain gear and entered the storm. “God damn it’s wicked out here,” Alders said to another. “Yeah, sure is. Let’s just get up to the front so we can tell him to call for help,” Brosco replied with a laugh, doing his best to ignore the fact that nothing should have been out here to hit. Looking to their left, all they could see was the ocean until it merged with the black just a few feet away.

The two men battled the wind and the rain, slowly making their way to the front of the ship. Brosco looked over the side and gasped. “Oil slick, one of the tanks must have ruptured,” he screamed to Alders as he saw something black and shiny reflecting off the surface of the ocean. Alders shook his head in disbelief, he heard the words but he didn’t believe that. They were too far forward to even come close to the tanks at all.

There was no possible way for them to rupture unless whatever they hit had actually run into them first. He’d heard stories of whales colliding with ships but he’d never experienced that before.

Alders had to see for himself and walked to the front of the ship and peered over it, and the blood ran from his face. He picked up his radio. “Uh, I don’t know what this is but it’s not like any kind of ground I’ve ever seen before, you’d better call this in,” Alders said into the radio as best as he could, forgetting all protocol, barely able to say the words to describe what he was seeing down there.

William heard this and was still confused. Charlie looked at him; the thought of the thing he had seen before, or thought he saw, only chilled him further. “What do you see, exactly, I need to know what I’m calling in,” Charlie replied quickly. They clearly weren’t moving but nothing was showing up on the radar.

According to the instrument there was nothing but a hundred miles of ocean in all directions. Ford didn’t understand this in the least and was sure it was just a malfunction created by the storm. Charlie was ready to put the ship in reverse and hope for the best.

“I see, well, we’ve run into some kind of black sandbar. It looks like some kind of thick gel of some kind and it goes on as far as I can see, it looks like an oil spill,” Alders replied into the radio. He peered into the darkness and just past the lights of the ship, but he could see nothing else but the shining, unnatural black.

He looked towards the side and saw the black mass was leeching some kind of reflective shining covering over the water. “Alders, that’s not oil, it’s coming from whatever this is,” Brosco said and turned back towards his friend only to see that Alders was nowhere in sight.

Without thinking twice about it, he ran to where Alders was to see if he had fallen overboard. He expected to see someone there in the water, but there was no one there. “Alders, where are you man, talk to me,” Brosco screamed into the wind. He was starting to panic. Twelve years at sea and he’d never lost anyone, or even been on a ship that had. He hadn’t seen what happened to Alders, however, Charlie and Ford had done.

The Captain put the ship in reverse as fast as he could. “Brosco, get inside, right now,” Ford said to him with the radio as the ship’s engine began to pull against the slime that had trapped it. “I need to find Alders, he’s out there somewhere,” Brosco replied as a new voice started to cry out behind the wind. Something he hadn’t heard before.

“Alders is gone, you can’t save him. Run now if you value your life,” Ford screamed, watching in terror as the massive black tentacle struck out of the dark from behind and snatched Alders off the deck and crushed him as it pulled him off into the black.

Ford stared at Charlie, as if the all-knowing captain was going to have some answers, some kind of explanation of what was going on, but Captain Sull had none. In all of his years he’d never seen anything like this. The powerful ship’s engines were in reverse and slowly the bulk of the thing began to slide back and away from what was now clear was something from some unknown and horrible depth of the sea.

The Lapiz freed itself from the slimy mass risen from the sea, its weight shifted and the tanker rocked from side to side, threating to capsize at the sudden shock of being thrust back into the water combined with the rough seas. Charlie struggled, fought, and soon regained control of the thing. “We need to go, call in our position to the-” he said and was cut off. Before him he watched in the flashes in the night sky revealed the hulk of black slime slowly lifting itself from the ocean. In the storm, it looked like a heap of slime, a blob of black horror.

“Oh my God,” William cried and slammed his fist against the alarm button. The super tanker only had a crew of fifteen people on it. He had to try and save them or at least give them the chance to abandon the ship as useless as it would have been in the storm anyway. He figured it was better than being eaten alive.

The alarms blared as the monster waded through the stormy seas, it was screaming something in the wind. Its voice was artificial thunder that rattled the windows of the ship as it came closer. Then the ship’s windows shattered at the sound. The voice of the beast could finally be heard. “Lysis,” it sounded like it was screaming over and over again, as if it was trying to speak but was only capable of one nonsense word.

The screaming thing lurched up and over the deck of the ship, crushing the front end deep into the ocean. The two on the bridge held on for dear life as the whole back end of the tanker came out of the water. They were soon staring directly into the wall of black slime. A thick, black tentacle came from the left side and with one powerful strike, cut the tanker in half. A million gallons of oil exploded in all directions.

Charlie, in his last strands of sanity, flipped on the emergency distress beacon seconds before the torrent of oil flooded the cabin, crushing them both.

The strange screaming beast watched as it tore the vessel was torn in half. Satisfied with its work, the black shape simply disappeared into the storm as if it had never existed at all. The scene had no human witnesses. However, in the raging sea a short distance away, a figure stood on the waves, his long green beard unmoved by the storm and the rain beating against his green, scaled armor.

His aged eyes glazed in horror as he witnessed something that made little sense. The loss of life did not concern Poseidon, however, the thing that took the lives did.

“This isn’t possible,” he said to himself nervously. The old god of the sea now had a grim message to report to his family, and all of their kind who had long been forgotten. Something old had returned despite all the safeguards against it. The God’s body dissolved into ocean water as he quickly made his way to what remained of Olympus.

CHAPTERTHREE

Samantha Waters sat on her cot, another mindless, boring day was passing here in her prison cell. The same one she’d been in for four years now, a sentence of twenty years and she still wasn’t used to it. This place was hell on earth, and hell was the lack of anything to do. Her left hand was absentmindedly pulling on a string that had frayed off her bright orange jumpsuit.

A jumpsuit that had to be specially made because she was taller than most of the people here, standing at six feet two inches, and her hair hung past her shoulders with ease. But in prison she had to keep it keep it up at all times. Dress code required it and common sense demanded it.

Here in the Dublin correctional facility, it was miserable. The place was overcrowded. There was three people to a cell that was only made to keep one. She was alone right now because her two cellmates were at some scheduled class; she didn’t care for them or the classes of this place. None of it. What she was enjoying, however, was the rare time alone.

Samantha also had a problem neither of her cellmates had. She was Mexican. Sure she was born in the United States, Kansas, but that made no difference to so many people who had been more than willing to share a wide variety of labels.

The scars on her knuckles and face had been proof she didn’t take kindly to any of that. Slowly word got around that if you liked your teeth, you’d keep your mouth shut around her.

Despite the miserable conditions of the place, she was lucky enough to have a small television in her cell, even though it only got one channel, the news. Despite being cut off from the outside world and society, it was really easy to simply keep up with it and as usual, the news was bad. That blue glow was reflecting off of her brown eyes and light brown skin; what was revealed of it, anyway.

“The remains of the oil tanker Lapiz was discovered in the Indian Ocean early this morning. All fifteen crew members aboard are presumed missing and officials are calling it one of the worst ecological disasters of the modern age. Over eleven million gallons of oil have been spilled and the slick can be seen from space,” the anchor said, and the screen switched views and showed a satellite image. The black oil spread out in all directions and to her, it looked like some kind of living thing reaching out with its tendrils. Something about it gave her chills, thankfully the scene switched back to the anchors.

“Scientists aren’t sure yet how this could have happened but right now something called a rogue wave is thought to be responsible for this tragic event, we’ll have more information as it comes in,” the man on television said when suddenly the door opened up and her cellmate came walking in. The door closed behind her and she turned to put her hands through the opening. The guard quickly removed the restraints.

“You’re in my spot,” she said with a glare. Samantha didn’t like Debbie, she didn’t like anyone else in here, either. “You left, Debbie, take the floor,” Sam replied. Debbie was all anger and no power to back it up at five foot four and one hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, maybe.

“I didn’t really have a choice you-“ with a glance of her grey eyes, Debbie was silenced. She knew who was in charge. “Watch your next words very carefully. You and I both know I’m not getting out on good behavior,” she said as she never took her eyes off the television, but cracked her scarred knuckles just to make a point.

“Fine, whatever,” Debbie replied as she put her back against the warm cement wall and slid down to the floor. “Is there anything good on today?” she asked in a much calmer voice. “Not really, just some ocean oil spill or something. It just came on the news,” she replied. The oil spill was being shown from the view of a helicopter, and below there were lots of other ships in various places. “Well, at least that’s not our problem to deal with,” Debbie said, not caring about disaster a million miles away from here.

“Oh, you never know. They might decide that inmates should be called on to help clean up the mess. You know they do that, right? I heard of some cons that are recruited to be firefighters. I’ll bet within the week we get called up to clean up, or at least you will,” Sam replied and laughed. Debbie just groaned at the thought.

“Debbie takes the Ocean, that sounds like a bad movie title,” Debbie replied and wanted to change the channel, but the news was all they ever got in here. Every other station was clouded with static, and on rainy days not even the news would come in. “It sounds like a bad idea to me,” Sam replied and could tell the conversation was dying pretty fast. It always did. The two of them had little in common.

She was sure that the system did all of that on purpose just to increase the misery factor of being in a place like this. There wasn’t much a dealer like her and a thief had in common, after all.

The two of them let the quiet descend on them when suddenly the small opening on the cell door opened. “Waters, you have a special visitor. I’m instructed to take you to the room,” the guard said, sounding as mechanical as ever. “Visitors, I wasn’t expecting anyone,” she replied, but any excuse to get out of here on an unscheduled visit was a good thing. Sam stood up and walked to the door. It wasn’t more than a second before Debbie pulled herself into the cot. “I’ll want my spot back,” she said as the cuffs were slapped around her wrists. The door slid open as she stepped back.

Sam was taller than the guard but neither one of them had any reason to be tense. “Come on, Waters,” she said to her and started to lead her away, down the hall and down the next corner. The trip didn’t take very long and she was lead into a dark blue windowless room with a long table with three chairs on at it. One on the left side, two more on the right. Two rows of humming white lights above.

Sam walked to the one on the left and sat down. The guard quickly locked the chain on the table to the cuffs. “Protocol and all, you know how it is,” she said and Sam just grunted in return. “Do you know who it is?” she asked the guard. “No idea, I didn’t ask and I really don’t care, I was just told to bring you here,” she replied and turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

This room didn’t even have a clock, and she could only imagine what kind of nightmare things happened in here - the drain in the middle of the floor did not go unnoticed.

Time passed slowly. Minutes in an unchanging room felt like hours. Sam had been in solitary confinement before and hated it. It was only for a day but it felt as if it would never end and being in a place like this was making those feelings come rushing back in a hurry. She was starting to sweat a little, which had nothing to do with the air temperature. Then with no warning, the door opened and two men came in. They were wearing suits and were the first she had seen in four years.

One was wearing a blue suit, looked to be about fifty years old and had grey hair that was nearly white. The one in the black suit looked much younger, had black hair and ghostly pale skin. Both of them were easily taller than she was, however. The pale skinned one was holding, what looked to her, like a newspaper. She took a breath and prepared for anything.

“Miss Waters, it’s nice to meet you. We’re your new lawyers,” the man in blue said as they both sat down. “Lawyers, what for?” she asked and was confused, there was no reason for these two to be here. All of this was very random to say the least. The one in blue smiled and it was strangely familiar to her but she didn’t know why.

“You might have heard about that oil tanker disaster in the sea, well, your case is actually directly connected to that. We, us here, need you to find the survivor of the wreck and kill him,” the one in black said, but he never smiled.

Sam was deeply confused, there were so many questions. “What, why did you just come out and say it?” the one in blue said, shocked. “Well, I just wanted to get to the point. I hate waiting around and I have stuff to do,” he replied and it was immediately clear that the two of them were not lawyers. She wasn’t sure who they were but this was very strange. “Fine, jerk,” the one in blue replied and stared deeply at her.

“I don’t know what any of this is but I’m not killing anyone, hire a hitman like any normal person would. That’s the end of it,” she said to them, and the blue-suited man put a briefcase on the black table. She didn’t see either of them carrying one inside. “Okay, I guess I have to get to the point,” he said and his tone dropped. “I don’t even know why I’m here,” the one in black said with a huff. She didn’t like him.

“My name is Zeus and this is my brother Hades. We’ve come to recruit you for the mission he put in not so nice terms,” Zeus said to her and Sam just tilted her head. “What?” she asked in confusion. Hades rolled his eyes.

“Can we just get to the point, please?” Hades asked. Zeus rested his old hands on the top of the briefcase.

“I don’t understand what’s going on here, you’re clearly not Gods because they aren’t real, so you’re two insane people and your murder kit is inside that case. This is what you do isn’t it? Come into prisons, pretending to be lawyers for women so you can do things,” she rationalized it quickly and became afraid.

“Yes, that is exactly what we do, you’re one smart cookie so we might as well get started. I call the top half,” Hades said, and his eyes widened and he smiled for the first time getting in the room.

“As fun as that would be, no, we don’t do that. Ignore him, he’s just got a weird sense of humor. But unfortunately, he’s right. We have a serious problem and only you can help us,” Zeus said and Hades scowled at him as his fun was ruined.

“Okay, let’s say for a minute that I believe you. What could the great Gods possibly need with a criminal with me?” she asked them the obvious.

“Criminal, hardly child, I am so sorry but what happened to you really wasn’t your fault. You are the last living being on this world with Olympian blood. God’s blood in fact. Back in the day we had all kinds of kids, you might have heard of some of them. You are the descendant of one of those. However, this blood always goes bad. The spark within burns in all of you and it almost always turns out the same way, in jail or dead, usually both. It’s why we vowed to not have any more kids,” Zeus explained to her. Hades nodded. “Oh, sometimes it goes really, really bad. The insanity is stronger in others, all things considered I’d say you got lucky,” he added.

“Okay, right, this has been fun and all but I really need to get back to my cell and reality,” she said to them and Zeus raised his left hand and sent small blue sparks between his fingers. “You humans always need proof, I get it. No one really believes in anything anymore, so believe in this,” he said, and from his raised hand a thin blue line shot into the chains, and the cuffs disappeared on contact.

“I don’t know how you did that but now they are going to charge me for attempted escape, thanks for the help,” Sam replied as she looked at her now free wrists, but she had to admit to herself that it was a pretty neat trick.

Hades held up his newspaper, cleared his throat as he began to read. “Military officer from Project Spearhead claims to have opened a portal to another dimension to witness the attack of a giant, black and clearly alien shapeshifting dinosaur attacking Las Vegas, Continued on page nineteen,” he said and put the paper down. “Do you know why I read that?” he asked. Sam had no idea and shrugged.

She looked at the cover and recognized it now as Night Mind Weekly. She used to read that when she had some spare money in the past. Her favorite stories were by a reporter by the name of Nick Nocturne. No one used their real names in that magazine. The stories were pretty good, at least some of the time. One of her favorite stories was about Mimal the Elf, oddly, she couldn’t remember how that one went. Not exactly. It had been years since she’d even thought about stuff like this.

“This is a human tabloid trash publication. From now on I want you to think of all mythology, all the stories, everything you thought you know as this. Mythology is just nothing more than a bored writer trying to make some money so they made stories up. And a good story never dies, the details change, the words change, too. But the concept of this trash never died,” Hades said and glared. He had many issues with what the truth was, and what people believed to be true throughout history. Sam really didn’t know much about this stuff anyways so she shrugged. Hades rolled his eyes in annoyance.

“So, that tells me nothing, why are you here? If you have a problem why can’t you just magic it away like you did these?” she asked and Hades was annoyed with all the questions. “We don’t have time for this, one is already loose and the others won’t be far behind if they aren’t out already. Maybe we should try to stop this ourselves and leave her here to rot,” he said and stood up.

Zeus decided to tell her everything. “We call them the Yokaiju. I, we, created them to defeat our so-called parents in the war before creation. I used the Opticon to separate their souls from their bodies. We hid their bodies in distant places, and their souls were trapped here where we could imprison them in the underworld,”

“Someone was supposed to be watching them and basically only had one job, someone screwed up and that’s why we’re here. We need you to recapture the souls of the weapons before they can find their real bodies, we can’t do it because, reasons,” he said.

Hades looked away, Sam caught on to who had messed up at their job and it explained a lot.

Sam decided to play along with the gods, or people, or whatever they were. She didn’t want to be zapped into dust or anything. “Say I agree, how could I capture these things?” she asked them.

Zeus smiled and opened the briefcase. “The Opticon, of course,” he said and picked up the golden bracelet, only to slide it on the table towards her. “This is what is responsible for literally everything you see and know and have ever known, it seems strange such a powerful thing is so small,” he said and continued.

“Try it on,” he said with a smile. It didn’t look small to Sam, it was big enough to hold in both hands, and she had pretty big hands.

“To be fair, I have no idea how they escaped. It’s not like it’s a mortal prison. Only just a few of us knew where the thing was located at all and getting there wouldn’t have been easy,” Hades tried to make himself look better but she didn’t care.

“There are twelve of them and each of them need a living body to exist, parasites, I guess you could call them. They can take over anything living they come into contact with. Lysis already had found something, no doubt it’s hiding inside of a warm body. The others will follow suit very soon. This world, the whole of everything is at risk, you have to help. Okay, you don’t have to, but it’d be good if you did,” Zeus said and seemed almost worried.

Hades hadn’t seen him worried about anything in a long time. Also, all the explaining was getting tiresome for him. He knew Zeus was prolonging this visit just to rub it in even more that yes, he’d failed, but wasn’t sure how yet.

Sam reached out and picked up the Opticon. It was incredibly light and made her fingers feel tingly as she gripped the strange metal. “Put it on,” Hades said, and was really getting on her nerves. She slipped the thing over her left wrist and despite how big it was, it instantly reduced its size and latched on to her at once. She didn’t have time to even react or do anything about it besides stand up in horror. It didn’t hurt, it was just unexpected.

“Relax, it’s supposed to fit everyone,” Hades said to her, almost laughing at her reaction. Sam didn’t feel any different. “So how am I going to get it off?” she asked. “It comes off when you finish the job, not before,” he replied to her. “Wait, what do you mean finish?” she asked, still in shock over the whole thing. Still staring at the piece of metal on her arm.

“Don’t worry, no one can see that thing besides you, us, and well, the ones you’re trying to catch, that’s kind of a design flaw if you ask me. Don’t bring attention to it and you’ll be fine,” Hades replied to her and Zeus stood up, and closed the briefcase.

“We’ll be in contact soon,” he said, and the two of them disappeared. “Wait, what am I supposed to do now?” she said and sat back down quickly. The handcuffs and chains that connected her to the table reappeared seconds before the guard came back in. Sam was still looking around to try to find out where they went.

“I guess your visitors never showed up. Back to the cell, come on,” she said to her and unlocked the chains. Sam stood up slowly, still in shock but decided to play along. What choice did she have if she didn’t want to sound insane?

“I guess not,” she replied, shocked and still trying to accept everything she had just been told. If she told the guard she figured that it would be a one way trip to the mental asylum, it was tempting to be honest. One thing was remaining true, however. She didn’t notice the golden bracelet on her arm. If that much was true, maybe the rest was too. The time away from her cell, now that it was over, had gone by entirely too fast.

CHAPTERFOUR

The oil slick stretched for hundreds of miles. Roger stood on the side of the Navy ship and looked out into the disaster, and the more he looked the worse it got. “We’ll never get this mess cleaned up,” he said to himself and turned away. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a shape just under the water. He turned back to get a closer look and couldn’t believe what he saw. “Oh my god, how did anyone miss that?” he asked and ran to the edge.