“By the time I had joined The Shield, I had already gone on adventures of my own for about a decade. At the same time, by the time they accepted me, they had been around for many years of their own, all four having been formed together from the beginning. In fact, I was the first to ever join their team after the first year of their debut, which was a great honor, and I was aware of that fact. But simultaneously, coming in that late lagged me, so it took time for us all to flow synchronously.”

Deep within the nearly black waters of the fathomless sea, a flash of sky blue light lit up an open titanic green hand with long fingers and sharp claws. The hand was connected to a scaly arm, visible for a few moments as the source of the flash in the form of a streak speedily soared upwards away from the grasp.

Following the evasion in the pitch darkness was a deep noise similar to a whale’s song so intense and loud that it vibrated the water. The song, which resembled the sound of a bloop, continued in irritability, sourced from a struggling being with a voice unlike any human being.

As the bloop dragged on, purple flashes flickered light into the underwaters, shaped as slashes that once again lit up the massive green hand. The slashes were rather small compared to the hand however, scaled like needles but with enough quantity to still adequately illuminate the arm as it rapidly appeared and vanished.

While the hand was visible, it didn’t flinch, but rather maintained its place as it took the barrage of slashes seemingly unharmed. It did however begin to move again, opening its hand to reach out once more with its long creepy fingers even as purple needles kept stabbing it.

Another sky blue flash appeared in an arc before the front of the green hand, right where the hand was attempting to move as it closed itself into a fist. The arc moved farther up away from the hand as the purple needles stopped appearing, and the hand coiled back.

Reaching its rendezvous and halting, the blue arc dissipated in an area of the water dimly lit red, sourced from the crusader mask of Furcifer. Where the blue arc had stopped now floated both Tachyon and Eidolon, who remained in place swimming in place. Tachyon turned to Furcifer before returning his gaze ahead, his arms and legs paddling upwards in a blue blur to maintain position as Eidolon beside him dawned a purple aura of vibrating water outlining her figure, not needing to make such movements.

Unable to speak clearly through the water, instead a server channel was used to broadcast speech between the team, exemplified by Tachyon who reported in a hasty voice, “Our attacks are hardly doing anything to Cthulhu over there, I’m not sure how we’re supposed to stop it.”

Staring down through the red cross visor towards the direction of the green hand as his legs made occasional kicks to keep him in place, Furcifer instead lectured, “You’re leaving Intrepid with trying to contain him, I want you to distract him for as long as you can as we try to follow the plan we laid out earlier.”

Speaking of the devil, the voice of Intrepid herself interjected through the voice channel to announce: “It’s not easy holding him, he got free again!”

In Furcifer’s hands materialized a heavy firearm with a body the size of its wielders, its back resting on his chainmail shoulder as along the side were vents that exuded a soft orange glow. He aimed it downwards at a gentle angle, and the glow from the vents began to brighten as a roaring hum began emitting from the weapon itself.

Suddenly, a flurry of massive orange flashes fired out of the launcher in rapid succession with thunderous booms, and moments later orange explosions began erupting in the far distance beyond the shooter, flaring what could only be described as a horrid monstrosity.

Decorated with constant orange explosions from the neverending stream of energy rockets, a green beast humanoid of both anthropogenic and cephalopodic properties appeared in the sea with a pair of colossal wings extended off its back with crawls at the end of the wings. Furthermore, its head resembled an octopus with a large sac that pulsated disturbingly, and countless long tentacles protruded from where its mouth would be, waving in the water below sharp red eyes emitted with a rageful glow.

Staring forward with both of its monumental scaly arms by its side with rows of spikes protruding up the arms as well as the legs and back, the wings flapped once, projecting a visible wave that flew straight past Furcifer with enough force to punch a building to the ground. That flap also pushed the beast upwards as it was climbing from the sea floor, rising as its wings moved up to flap again for another boost.

Noticing that the barrage of rockets did nothing to the beast, Furcifer stopped firing the cannon and instead shifted attention to Tachyon, who stayed by his side as the monster continued its ascendence.

Watching the beast continue to move, Furcifer noted through the channel, “If it gets to the surface, there’s a high chance all the people on this Earth will suffer fatal brain damage without our inhibitors. We need to stop that from happening, and fast.”

“I can make a ceiling-,” pitched the familiar voice of Meditat also through the channel, invisible from the three’s perspective but clearly present in battle.

Instead, Furcifer boldly commanded, “Tachyon, Intrepid, I want both of you to wall off its escape for now. Just get him to stop, that is our first priority.”

Beside him, Tachyon nodded before dashing up towards the direction of Cthulhu in a sky blue streak, swimming rapidly and leaving the leader and Eidolon.

On the opposite side of the battle behind the Cthulhu’s wings, the whale song began once again, casting shivers to Intrepid, whose eyes were glowing green as she was enclosed in a bubble of solidified water giving her about a foot of free air away from the water which surrounded but didn’t touch her.

Beside her stationed Meditat, accompanying her in this subgroup, his body unmoving, emitting azureus light off the streaks and lenses on his body as his cape danced underwater. He raised his head up, noticing that he was cut off before finishing his idea.

Intrepid raised her head after receiving the command, and she accepted, “On it!” before ascending up, carrying her bubble with her and leaving Meditat in a second. He remained however, perplexed without a command as he instead was benched to wait.

Soaring up past the Cthulhu, the bright blue streak began circling over the monster’s wings rapidly to the point where it traced a consistent circle with a radius greater than the beast’s width. Between the circle, water began to swirl from the anomaly, being thrashed around in a whirlpool faster and faster.

“Okay, I’m pressurizing the water so it should act as a solid barrier, maybe just focus on the wings for now?” suggested Intrepid in the channel as he maintained the circle, igniting a blue light above Cthulhu's head. At the same time, both of its wings stopped moving, being restrained as the bubble glided up behind the bald long head.

Trapped and constrained, the monster raised its head up to see the blue halo, and the tentacles on its chin began to raise as well towards it, waving as it seeped towards the circle.

Lower down where the duo were, Meditat noticed the tentacles’ movements and began soaring up with a blue light emitting off his body as he shouted, “Tachyon, look out!”

Speeding around and around, Tachyon swam in breaststroke, pushing himself forwards in similar motions to his kicks as afterimages were cast behind every movement. He didn’t seem to take note of the callout as he left his head up, not noticing as tentacles with widths greater than his own body protruded from below the halo, rising like massive tendrils as they began thrashing at the halo to catch him.

Only now did he lower his head, off guard as one of the tentacles thrashed in his direction, managing to slap him out of the circle tens of feet away with a loud oof. He strayed away from his path as the blue halo vanished, and the whirlpool died.

Petrified from the strike, Intrepid turned to Tachyon’s gliding body with a shout, “Tac!” before turning her head only to see the open massive hand with a palm several times larger than her body reaching right for her behind Cthulhu's back.

She instinctively blocked her face with her arms in fear, projecting all her strength into holding back the hand as she momentarily locked up in fear of the titanic threat. She kept the hand back, attempting to maintain the distance as she wasn’t able to move, feeling the immense force of the giant hand with fingers that could punch her entire head off.

Racing up towards the gliding body, Meditat attempted to reach for Tachyon after watching him get knocked off course. He raised both hands up as he approached Tachyon, ready to grab him as he appeared disoriented.

A flash of purple light appeared over Tachyon’s body as Eidolon suddenly appeared, grabbing Tachyon before Meditat could, who immediately ceased only about ten feet away. He watched as Eidolon held Tachyon’s body before shouting, “Tic Tac, you there? Come on, don’t fall asleep now.”

Noticing that he wasn’t waking up, her right hand began vibrating with a purple hue, and she used it to slap Tachyon’s face hard with an impacting boom, who immediately jumped out of her hold and instinctively grabbed his cheek in agony with a complementary “OWW!”

Eidolon turned towards the monster before declaring, “He’s back up again!”

On the other side, Furcifer flew forwards with his left arm extended out, projecting a cable as in his right arm was his light machine gun which he fired a heavy stream of red bolts with. The anchor of his grapple was stuck on the base of one of the monster’s tentacles as he was firing straight at the red eyes, the only aperture he could find.

As he laid down heavy fire after noticing Intrepid getting into trouble, he commanded “Good, I’m doing my best to keep it busy, but we need to act fast. Eidolon, I need you to help me distract him, give it a target he can’t hit. Tachyon, is it possible to do an Oxygen Killer?”

Called to action, Eidolon nodded her head before vanishing in a purple flash. Beside the flash, Tachyon reoriented himself upwards before facing Cthulhu as it was stationed attempting to grab Intrepid and fend off Furcifer’s fire.

Tachyon then swayed his head in contemplation before calculating, “I should be able to, it’s a lot of space to cover but it shouldn’t be too much. You sure that would even work?”

Purple light flickered in front of the god’s face as it stared vengefully with red eyes as Furcifer rained fire from his minigun. Amongst the purple flashes was a uniquely larger one which carried forth Eidolon, appearing in front of Furcifer with a purple hue as her body was noticeably translucent.

She levitated in front of the red eyes as Furcifer detached his grapple and boosted in a left strafe, distancing from her as the Cthulhu’s tentacles began changing direction and pointing at her. They then began throwing themselves at her in succession, one after the other as the monster found a new target. However, while each tendril flew through their target, the target appeared unharmed, and instead moved from side to side, baiting more tentacles as she didn’t at all seem threatened by them.

As Intrepid remained holding out against the hand, she noticed between her arms that the massive hand finally stopped pushing towards her, and instead moved away, finding a new target and leaving her be.

A heavy sigh of relief exuded from her mouth as she gently lowered her arms, able to calm down after the stressful altercation. She then moved backwards, staring at the titanic silhouette of the Cthulhu who was lit up by the constant purple flashes in front of it. She stared at the wings larger than buildings, understanding the grave situation that could come to fruition if this being managed to reach the surface. Luckily, her team was taking roles in distracting it, and in the time being the monster was no longer attempting to rise.

Tachyon analyzed Cthulhu’s body as he was studying what he’d need to do to make the necessary attack, and beside him Meditat watched, still awaiting a command. He sighed, becoming impatient as he was given nothing to do, and suggested, “What if we tried targeting its brain? It likely has one, and seeing how slow it moves I’m sure we could focus fire on it easily. I could probably make something strong enough to penetrate its skull.”

“Wait wait wait, I have a better idea!” excitedly exclaimed Tachyon.

Meditat glanced at him with perplexity, although Tachyon’s attention was still up at the Cthulhu. He watched as Tachyon elaborated, “Furcifer, maybe that would work but I don’t know if it would put this thing down for good, we can’t just suffocate it, we need to destroy it. Intrepid, is it possible for you to try sundering the creature’s atomic structure? Even if just a little bit, I just need a head start and then I might be able to scatter its body, thereby sort of atomizing it. I know that’s asking for a lot, but if you can do that, this could work!”

Dodging tendrils left and right, Eidolon followed first, offering “I could try loosening it too to help her with that if that’s okay, I know it’s not something I should do with other people but this situation should be fine, right? I mean…we aren’t really concerned about this thing’s preservation, right?”

Reeling straight towards the monster’s face, Furcifer weaved through the tentacles no longer holding a firearm. Instead, his right gauntlet extended both black blades from each side of his forearm, extracting both at once, and he pulled his arm back. He let out a roar as he reeled straight into the monster’s right red eye the size of his body, and plunged both of his black blades straight into it. The eye flashed red as the whale song became louder and more intense, almost sounding like a roar as Furcifer sunk his blades deeper into the optic.

Such agony was forced against the beast by the two black blades, for they were no ordinary blades made of no simple metal, but rather made out of experimental composites that harnessed the same otherworldly force that bestowed him with the curse of inhuman strength. They were the blades that could cut through just about anything, from the armor of human soldiers to the eye of godly monsters with insurmountable power. That was his greatest weapon, wielding power beyond nature itself, perfect to combat monsters who called for weapons greater than simple laser rifles.

After stabbing out the great monster’s right eye, Furcifer boosted backwards, swimming away as he saw the monster throw its hands at him defensively. He boosted back to just barely evade the massive right hand, flipping over it and clinging onto the back of the hand with his boots before then pushing off for greater speed.

Furcfier shifted his gaze to the monster before determining, “It would be nice to study, but stopping it from reaching the surface comes first, even if it means decimating its entire being. Do it, I’ll try to keep it busy.”

Gently sighing as it seemed his suggestion wasn’t even received, Meditat reluctantly boosted up towards the action, taking initiative himself and trying to find an opening to aid in the plan which didn’t seem to call for him at all.

Furcifer drifted backwards, watching the monster reach for him with its left hand, its right eye no longer glowing yet still remaining violent and active. He boosted upwards seconds before the hand reached him, evading right above the colossal arm moments away from being grabbed. He then aimed both arms down at the wrist, firing grapples from both arms.

Both tipped anchors stabbed into the creature’s body, and pulled Furcifier down onto the monster’s wrist. Using both anchors to hold himself steadily, Furcifer stood atop the beast’s wrist, his arms down and the wires tense as he glared up at the monstrosity.

Facing the one eyed monster, Eidolon flew up to the Cthulhu’s bald head, and hovered her arm a few feet over it. Her body remained translucent, and as she concentrated deeply, a spot of the Cthulhu’s head began to emit a purple hue as the skin started to vibrate. The spot began to grow exponentially, covering the Cthulhu’s octopus-esc head purple.

She groaned tiredly as she attempted to cover the entire monster, whose body was so massive that it strained her greatly. As she groaned through gritted teeth, she was joined by Intrepid from the backside of the head, who remained in her bubble as she extended both arms towards the head.

Intrepid nodded her head and closed her eyes, focusing all her energy on her singular target. Focusing on the thick skin of the creature, she put all her mental might into honing into the most specific structure of the body that she could, the most specific there was. The air in front of her hands began vibrating as well as her body started glowing green, indicating the strain she was also putting herself through.

However, the top of the Cthulhu’s bald head suddenly began to deform from a hard solid into a sort of sludge as if it was being melted alive. Soon the entire head malformed into this sludge, and not long after the shoulders started to as well.

Concurrently as the Cthulhu’s skin turned to sludge, the rate at which its body was covered in the purple vibration also increased, as the combination of the two effects sped up each other’s processes. Soon not just the head and shoulders, but the entire torso and arms were vibrating purple before soon distorting into sludge.

Racing up towards the beast, Meditat began secreting flames from his hands as he prepared to manifest another weapon. Glaring straight at the green body, he then heard Tachyon’s voice over the channel shout, “Intrepid, tell me when you’re done softening him up, and then both you and Eidolon need to tab out of there! Everyone else, also get away or you’re going to be in a lot of different places!”

Hearing the warning, Meditat abruptly stopped in front of the monster, having reached in front but now being told not to fight. He watched as Furcifier boosted off of Cthulhu’s wrist and summoned his rocket launcher before firing successive blasts at the beast, the immense recoil of which helped push him further backwards away from danger.

Unable to do any good, Meditat simply watched as the entirety of Cthulhu’s sludgy body lit up purple, his wings, body, legs, and clawed feet. He stood tall like the skyscrapers seen in the city, trying to climb to the surface but now being halted by the team.

He listened as Intrepid yelled, “DONE!” before she began flying away in the bubble in a green streak, soaring towards the front of the monster as Eidolon vanished. He saw as the green streak curved around the monster and reached Furcifier, who had now reached Meditat albeit well below him. Next to Furcifier also appeared Eidolon, and both watched from a safe distance as Cthulhu stared at them in the grotesque state it was put in.

Swimming in place, waiting patiently, Tachyon received the call and nodded his head, shouting back: “Got it! Sit back and watch the show!”

Sitting back, Meditat attended the blue streak arch out from behind Cthulhu’s body, and wrapped around it at an angle. It then reappeared from above the monster’s shoulder, and straight down past its legs before curling in again. The blue streak wrapped around the colossal god’s body faster and faster, wiring a sky blue sphere from its trail as the water within the sphere began trembling intensely.

Inside the sphere, Cthulhu attempted to move, although its body was extremely slow as it blooped in agony. Its wings also were unable to flap, confined in place as the blue streak continued to surround it tightly. Moving so fast that the head of the streak was not even traceable even from afar, Tachyon accelerated in the water to dangerous speeds, emitting a whooshing sound audible even deep in the sea.

Inside the blue globe, Cthulhu whaled as its body began to expand, melting as it was seemingly being cooked alive. It glared out at the enclosing orb containing it, unable to move as its wings completely lost shape, and began to evaporate into a green gaseous substance.

Pulled from all directions in a cosmically powerful vacuum, the great god’s tentacles liquified as its body kept expanding as it did the sphere. Being tugged apart, Cthulhu’s body lost its own humanoid shape, becoming more of a rounded board the more it lost structure.

One more bloop, and the entire green body combusted into green smoke before quickly dissipating, being vanquished completely. Its red eye vanished as did the rest of its being, losing its presence within the blue sphere.

Meditat watched as did the rest of The Shield as the blue sphere began to lose composure as the blue streak flew straight out and straight towards them. Stopping a foot away from Furcifier, Tachyon appeared with a heavy sigh of exhaustion, and the blue sphere behind him was gradually unwired.

Past the eroding blue globe where the terrifying god once hovered was now nothing at all but empty air before being covered up by water, drowning out the presence of the beast in seconds as the sea fell back into silent tranquility.

As if nothing ever happened.

As if nothing was there from the beginning.

Blankly staring straight, Meditat solemnly looked at the nonexistent remains of the mission, and he gently lowered his head, his lenses dwelling into the bottomless void below him. Submerged in the black water, he was surrounded in the darkness, and he let out a soft, slow sigh.

Whether it was a sigh of relief or something else, that wasn’t known even to himself.