Nineteen Years Before

For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.
- Luke, VIII. 17 (King James Version)

Mocrocks Beach, Washington State
April 4th, 2004

"This is stupid," grumbled Dave as he followed his friend James down to the beach.

"No, come on!" James called back over he shoulder as he ran ahead. "You gotta see this!"

Dave didn't really want to see whatever it was. He didn't even want to be outside, because it was cold and windy and the sky was full of iron-coloured clouds that threatened to drizzle. It was a typical April day, which meant it was spring, and Dave hated spring because it wasn't ever sure if it wanted to carry on being winter or get a move on and get to summer already. And he lived near the coast, which made it worse. The wind blew stronger from the sea and made you wear hoodies and jackets even when the sun was out.

He should have been inside, doing homework or watching TV. Anything a normal kid did. But then James had come round and said he had to come down to the beach with him. And James was the kind of boy whom, if you tried to attack him with logic, skirted around it with his own sideways logic that you couldn't argue with even though you knew it made no sense. So Dave knew it was pointless to try.

So here he was, following his idiot friend down to the beach. The wind was blowing hard, making him fold his arms over his chest in spite of wearing his hoodie, and it definitely looked like it was going to rain. And the seagulls were screaming, which irritated him even further,

This was so stupid.

His mood wasn't improved when he stumbled over the Step. That was the informal name for where the concrete slabs of the pavement ended and the dirt path down to the beach began. Time and weather had eroded it to the pint where it was just an inch shorter than you expected it to be, and a little loose as well. It took two massive steps and a lot of flailing for the boy to get his footing back, and his ankle stung in protest.

"Come on!" shouted James, who had gotten further ahead. 

He could have left him. He could have just turned around and walked back home and left the idiot out in the cold and the wind. Who cared about some dumb thing he'd found on the dumb beach on this dumb stretch of coast in this dumb village?

Dave huffed, shoved his hands in his pockets and followed.

Contrasts

There are two kinds of people in this world.

Fruits

The Agama Fruit Festival wasn't something the Kobbers got to see. It was one of those "off-season" events that the locals held, and it just so happened to be at a time when the group wasn't present for it. Which was a bit of a shame, because as the stalls rose up in the Grand Agama Market, bannas were hung and flags flown, it definitely would have been a sight they would have enjoyed, had they been there to witness it.

Those helming the festival had prepared all year for it. Stalls laden with the finest, ripest produce filled the streets with colour from one end to the other in a riot of hues. The scents, too, changed the air, replacing the drab smells of the air with the refreshing aura of green things, from the zest of maracuya and lulo to the floral hit of feijoa and so much more. No expense had been spared - everyone had a stall to call their own, and all of it lead down, like the threads of a spiders web, to the market square. It was here that those with a more enterprising mindset sold merchandise and more to any tourists that happened to be passing through.

The shouts of vendors as they bade customers come to sample their wares, the rows of well-tended fruits and the music that filled the air mingled together like threads on a tapestry, creating an atmosphere of relaxed jolity and well-being among the assembled people, Yes, it was a good time for the city. A time to relax and celeberate everything that was Agama. 

And, they assumed, with no superhumans or monsters to worry about.

They were proven wrong very quickly.

"AH-HA-HA-HA-HAAAA!"

Dying of the Light

WARNING: Mentions of emotional abuse, heavy existential dread. Reader discretion is advised.

You haunt me.

Ultraman Trigger looked out on the universe.

Billions upon trillions of stars, flashing like pinpricks in the inky darkness of the cosmos, unfathomable light years away. Nebulae swirled and churned in a rainbow storm of dust and life-to-be. Planets turned their circles, sometimes show and patient, sometimes at speeds incomprehensible to mortal eye. All around were lights, sounds, colours - things that would stagger the imagination of any human able to perceive it all in this way.

But Trigger could find no joy in it. No solace from his thoughts.

Every lie. Every sick joke. Every waking moment. Thousands of years gone and the memory of you still burns.

His almond eyes seemed fixed on a point so distant that mortal eye would bleed if it attempted the same feat. He did not breathe - his kind did not need to, and in this near-total vacuum there was no point. Behind him, the shining sun of Earth - Sol - raged on, throwing out its fire across the face of the one planet orbiting it that could ever support intelligent life. It looked close, but it also seemed somehow incredibly distant, as though perspective and distance had become optional things.

And Trigger knew, in the back of his mind, that there were thousands of other universes out there, with their own Sols and their own Earths, each doing the exact same thing. Some younger, some older.

He derived no comfort from it.

That's all you are now. A memory. A thought in my head. And you leave me here, alone.

Anger

WARNING: The following contains an implied instance of transphobia and thus may be distressing to certain readers. Also the word 'gringo' is used. Discretion is advised.

He knew he shouldn't really have been up here. He had to help the others in the juice bar. Grandma Micaela was out to get ingredients, and it was late afternoon in Agama, which meant heat and stickiness. Customers would be flocking into the bar in droves, and there'd be only two others tending bar. Both of whom would be rushed off their feet keeping up with demand.

But Valério Freitas needed to be in his room so he could work out some anger.

Z-Day

There were three kinds of people who came back on that day.

There were the very confused.

Decisions Part 2 (NSFW!)

Kouta's peaceful morning of smoking weed on his apartment balcony was ruined when a bright pink Hummer crashed through his wall.

"Get in the car, loser," grinned Panty. "We're going to the fucking jungle."

"...you've ruined my house," was all Kouta could manage in the shock of the moment.

"Don't sweat it, Kouta, darling," retored Stocking, not looking at him. "Just call that Cosine cunt and have him foot the bill. It's not like you've got any other shit to do."

Kouta would have liked to point out that this was a blatant falsehood. He was still in uni and had a lot of prep to do if he wanted to earn the grade that would meet his asshole father's standards. But he also knew that, for all of his bullshit time powers, both angels would tie him into a pretzel if he did anything to piss them off. Or worse. He still winced when he remembered their story of what they did to Kou.

 "...what about all my stuff?" he tried, once more.

"Fuck it, we'll buy you new shit when we get there!" Panty tossed her hair out of her eyes. "Perfect time to get your godawful fashion sense ironed out! I've been fantasizing about you in a leather jacket and nothing else for the past two days and I am mad wet for that."

So, still in mild shock and with great reluctance, Kouta climbed into the back seat of See-Through without packing so much as a toothbrush. Stocking turned around and gave him a quick peck on the cheek as he buckled up, then hit the gas so hard the youth swore he heard the pedal bend. The vehicle shot forward with a noise like a dragon having a particularly rough colonoscopy, tearing up the apartment even more, and plummeted down to the road below with a thunderous crash before roaring down the street at top speed.

"And why," screamed Kouta over the engine and the wind in his ears, "are we going to the fucking jungle? Aside from that being where the Kobbers are gonna be?"

"Two reasons." Stocking never took her eyes off the road, even as she swung the hulk of See-Through between gaps in the traffic. "One, chocolate grows there and I want it. Two, Panty wants to bang her way through an entire hidden tribe's worth of men. And three, you're a goddamn nervous wreck from your studies and you need to get the fuck out of there before you pull an Elliot Rogers and shoot up Olympia. And we're gonna save you with the power of palm trees, parrots and hot native girls with coconut bras."

"Call it a pussy vacation!" Panty had pulled up her phone and was scrolling through it. "Social media's screaming that Agama's the place to be for horny students right now! What better way to get a load of your mind, Geek Boy, than by blowing a few loads of your own?"

"...you two are absolutely disgusting."

"Bitch, you love it!" Both angels said that at the same time, looking back with matching grins.

Kouta couldn't help but grin back. "Yeah, I... kinda do."

"Besides," added Stocking, turning back to the road and turning a wicked hairpin, "me and Panty got jobs to do. If the Kobbers are gonna show up in Agama, then so is every dark and twisted thing lurking in those fucking trees. You think Ghosts that show up in cities are bad? Wait until you get a load of jungle spirits."

"Christ, she's not kidding." Panty was now snapping selfies and trying to get as much of her own cleavage into them as possible. "When you're not steppin' on eggshells with grass skirt-wearing twats who think their gods are walking among them, you're trying to kill things that have been festerin' in the jungle mud for hundreds of years and become part of the fucking furniture. And that's before we deal with the dickheads trying to start a cult in the middle of the mangroves."

Stocking rolled her eyes. "Ugh, don't even get me started. It's like, 'Bitch, do I gotta talk to you about the Satanic Panic and how much bullshit that was?' It's like they're begging to get bent over by cops with stun batons!

"Hey, if a cop asked me to bend over the hood, I'd be all like 'Sure, officer, do you want me to keep the panties on~?'"

"Ugh, is there anything hard you won't say no to?"

But Kouta had long tuned out of the conversation. The once item he'd managed to hold onto was his phone, and he was now scrolling through the headlines in a desperate bid to reassure himself that this imprompty vacation would go smoothly.

This proved to be a mistake, as nothing but clickbait screamed out at him.

MOUNTAIN MONSTER "BARADAGI" SPOTTED?

"RYUSOUL TRIBE" - PROOF REMAINS ELUSIVE!

"TIGA PYRAMID" CONTINUES TO BAFFLE!

He groaned.

"Evolto, come back, all is forgiven."

 -------

"Coming to you live, this is Good Morning Agama, your one place for Kobber News! And now, your hosts!" 

"One's Chick, the other's Stew, and you know the routine!"

"They should do, Chick! They've only been tuning in for the past twenty years!"

"It's always someone's first show, Stew. Not everyone has the time to consume the 24-7 glut of fearmongering clickbait and reactionary tripe that social media spews out on a constant basis.

"But in actual news, instead of pointless fillibusters, we have yet another rumor to add to the increasing pile in the buildup to Kobber arrival to Agama City! The sad fact is, sightings of what may be yet more Kobber Killer activity have finally reached our fair jungle abode, as a man was found today in a critical condition outside of the city limits. While no word has come from the general hospital concerning his state, eyewitness reports and footage at the scene indicates the man was in a... baffling state when he was discovered."

"Only way it could be described, Chick, was if he got into that teleporter accident in that Jeff Goldblum movie! But replace the fly with an entire engine block from a land rover, and you got the general idea! Yeesh, just thinking about it gives me the heebie-jeebies!"

"I feel you there, Stew. Thankfully, our contacts in the Kobber world have been able to disseminate a potential profile of the person responsible for the man's condition. Based on compiled reports from across the globe, the man's description matches that of Japanese serial killer Yatsu Taniguchi, who supposedly went missing from his cell in a maximum-security prison two years ago. Yatsu was informally known by the public as 'The Metal Fetishist'-"

"Eeeeew!"

"-due to his bizzare fixation on metal and machinery, as well as a crippling cocktail of mental illnesses that drove him to commit his crimes. In fact, our reliable source on the inside states that the hospitalized man's symptoms are similar to Yatsu's previous victims, whom he mutilated in a bid to create living weapons he called 'Bodyhammers'. A major warning bulletin has since been sent out, and all members of the public are advised to be on the lookout."

"Boy... And I thought things were scary enough with the giant monsters and the pyramids and hidden tribes!"

"The fact that you believe any of that clickbait frightens me, Stew. On a deeply personal level."

"Hey, with half the things that happen during Kobber season, you can't be too careful!"

"Uh-huh. And how much did you spend on that 'anti-Ghidorah' umbrella again?"

"...enough to make my wife kick me out of the house, Chick."

"My sympathy well has long dried up."

-------

FIRMWARE DETECTED: fmOS V1.0. Property of FUTURE MEMORY, LLC.

STARTUP BEGIN. Initating power-up procedures...

Initializing framework...

CROSSLYNQ connection to cyberspace established. Checking for file updates...

All files up to date. Performing final logic routine check.

No errors detected.

Booting up...

"Oh! Well, hello, and welcome, everyone! My name is Monitan, and I'll be your guide to the world of CROSSNIQ+, the breakout new game from FUTURE MEMORY! So...

"...ready to cross to the future~?"

~COMING THIS MAY~