WARNING (In Argentina, nicknames like "Gordo", "Negro", "Chino", "flaco", etc., are common, even used as a second name. Please keep this in mind; they are not meant as an insult.)
The air in Fede's living room smelled of chips and cheese puffs.
We'd been locked in a game of TEG for five hours that seemed to have no end. On the table, the map was divided into two colors, while a third barely held on.
Negro Fede — the host — had barely managed to keep two countries on the map. The color of his pieces? Black, obviously. Meanwhile, Gordo Matías, playing with red, and I, Nicolás — or "El Flaco," as they call me — dominated the rest of the board with our green and red pieces.
Colo Lucas and the Chino were sitting to one side, watching the game with disinterest.
I was fed up.
"It's been five hours. Let me wipe out Negro already and be done with it."
"Not a chance," Gordo jumped in. "It is the duty of the People's Republic of China to safeguard the world from the filthy greens."
Fede nodded, indignant.
"Exactly, man. They committed black genocide, damn greens."
"What do you want me to do?" I defended myself. "It's my winning condition."
El Negro let out a bitter laugh.
"How about not making the genocide so obvious? You went too far!"
Chino spoke up from the side.
"Well, the game would have been over three hours ago if Colo wasn't a cheater and hadn't snitched all the mission cards."
Colo, leaning back on the couch, shrugged without a hint of remorse.
"If I'm not having fun, I'm taking everyone down with me."
"It's not our fault you're useless at this game," Chino shot back.
"I'm not bad! It's those crap dice of Gordo's that hate me. If I'd brought my own, I'd be doing fine."
"'Fine up your backside' is more like it," I said while everyone laughed.
Then I moved my pieces, attacking and eliminating one of the last two territories al Negro had left. He lamented dramatically.
"You bitch! You can't kill me! I'm like a cockroach — I don't die, I multiply. God is on my side."
El Gordo, very into his role, nodded solemnly.
"That's right. The People's Republic of China will safeguard the last blacks remaining in the world."
Then he went quiet. He stared at the board. The last country el Negro had left was surrounded by thousands of his red troops.
Out of nowhere, Gordo began to smile slowly.
Chino, not understanding why, asked:
"What are you laughing at, Gordo? You need to take the Americas to win and it's all taken by the Skinny One."
"Oh yeah? You sure?" Gordo replied, and slowly he moved his troops and invaded Negro's last territory.
Negro looked at him, confused.
"What the hell are you doing? That's no use for winning!"
Gordo threw the dice in front of him.
"Nobody orders China around! Don't be a coward — die with honor!"
"Die with honor?" Negro screamed. "A trillion damned Chinese are invading my lands!"
"Roll the dice!" Gordo insisted.
Negro threw the dice. He held on, but in the end, the Chinese machine was too much and his country disappeared from the map. Gordo let out a triumphant laugh.
"At last... my master plan bore fruit."
"What plan?" Colo asked. "You've still got all of the Nico's green to beat to win."
Gordo laughed and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a card and tossed it on the table. It read: "Eliminate the player to your right."
"I knew Colo would sneak a look at the missions," he said triumphantly. "So when I went to the bathroom, I hid my real card and swapped it for another one from the deck I left on the table. All I had to do was play the good guy and wait for Negro to hand himself over. It was all worth it."
The group went silent for a second. The player to Gordo's right was me. To his left was Negro Fede.
We started laughing so hard we nearly fell off our chairs. Gordo looked at us, thrown off.
"You dyslexic idiot!" I yelled between tears of laughter. "Fede is to your LEFT!"
Gordo froze. He looked at his right hand — his dominant hand — and then his left. The color drained from his face, and in the end, he started laughing too, slapping his leg.
"La puta madre..." he said, choking on his laughter. "La puta madre...!"
The doorbell interrupted the laughing. It was the delivery order — three pizzas with fainá. Since Gordo eats enough for four, it was better to have leftovers than to deal with him moaning about being hungry.
After paying and setting out the plates, we settled around the table while the conversation continued. Chino grabbed the pizza cutter and started marking the slices, but Gordo, desperate, reached out to grab a piece before anyone else. I slapped his hand.
"Don't be such a glutton — wait until he's done cutting."
"I'm absolutely starving, boludo!" he complained, rubbing his hand.
Colo, following the sequence with the fernet and cola, chimed in from his side.
"You're always starving, Gordo. You have no limits."
"Well... I have to eat as much as I can while I can," he justified himself, adjusting his chair. "Next week I start the gym — mark my words. My prime era is coming."
Negro shook his head with a grimace of annoyance.
"You're something else, Gordo. Let me guess... it's going to be god too, isn't it?"
"Well, no need to exaggerate, it's just a figure of speech."
In the middle of Gordo's tantrum about the food, Chino looked up from the tray and glanced at me.
"Che Flaco — what's the deal with that heart thing?"
"I've got an appointment next week," I answered, brushing it off with a gesture. "But I've had this since I was eleven and they always told me everything was fine. There shouldn't be any problems — I'm used to it by now."
Colo leaned out from his seat, pointing at me with his glass.
"You'd better be alright, brother. Look — even I got a girlfriend and Gordo is threatening to go to the gym. All of this happened before GTA 6 came out, man. If you go and die on us now, that'd just be the limit."
The table erupted with laughter — the kind that loosens any tension. Gordo caught it for a second, but then put on a serious face and looked straight at Chino.
"Alright, come on, Chino — stop messing around and pass me the pizza."
Colo shook his head, still fighting the urge to laugh. Chino smiled and started handing out slices. I watched as he reached his arm out to offer me mine.
"Here you go, Flaco. It's the salami one — just like you," he said with a smug smile.(Joke, salame is a form of insult in Argentina, a... mild one, a way of saying stupid)
The others laughed lightly at the joke. I reached out my hand to grab the slice...
====
He was underwater.
SID's voice broke through the silence.
"Are you alright, sir? I have run several detailed medical scans — your body shows no superficial or internal physical injuries, and your brain activity remains within stable ranges. However, you were in what appeared to be a catatonic state. I attempted to wake you but you showed no reaction. Given the risk, I made the decision to take control of the suit and begin guiding you back toward the city."
He blinked a couple of times, feeling how the weight of the deep water gave way to the force of the automatic thrusters SID was managing. The darkness of the ocean was still there, but the static of reality hit him in the face. He gave his head a slight shake inside the helmet, coming back to himself.
"Yes... yes, I'm fine, SID. It was... just a strange dream, nothing more. But I'm back now. Everything's okay."
"Understood. Returning armor control to your direct command."
Instantly he felt the suit's control return to him.
"I must point out," SID resumed, "that the maneuver you performed was an extremely dangerous move. You put the integrity of the armor and your own life at risk."
"I agree, SID," he said, adjusting to the water's resistance as he stabilized his course. "But I couldn't take the chance. Let's focus on the result, okay? In the end, everything turned out fine."
There was a slight pause on the line.
"There is one more detail you should know, sir," she added. "While you were unconscious, I registered an anomaly on your wrist. It appears the Omnitrix may have unlocked a new alien form. During your unconscious state, the device lit up yellow several times."
"Oh, really?"
He turned his wrist and brought his other hand to the Omnitrix, pressing the button to raise the dial. He began to rotate it slowly, watching as holographic silhouettes were projected in the dim underwater light. Suddenly, a stocky figure appeared — with details resembling water tanks and cannons on the forearms.
"Overflow? Well... he lacks Ripjaws's mobility, but he's far more versatile and his defense is excellent. Finally, something else to work with in the water."
He let the dial drop and looked back ahead. The idea of having another native ocean option lifted a great weight from his shoulders.
"How do you think they're managing with the other two?"
"Standard area defenses should not be sufficient on their own," SID explained. "However, there are records of specialized sonic weapons designed for large-scale creatures. If they manage to use that weaponry efficiently, they should be capable of repelling them long enough for Prince Namor to arrive in time. So you need not worry, sir."
He let out a long sigh of relief, feeling the tension ease from his shoulders.
"Good, at least all this work and the risk weren't for nothing. I hope Shuri behaved herself while I was gone."
"That, sir, is unlikely."
He smiled tiredly inside the helmet, nodding to himself.
"Yeah, you're right."
===
Byrrah, with bloodshot eyes and a voice broken by urgency, let out a cry that cut through the roar of battle.
"Take cover! Everyone, find shelter!"
The warning came barely an instant before the giant eel — whose presence until moments ago had been little more than a distortion in the water — revealed its true nature.
From its jaws poured a cascade of black, viscous, thick liquid that spread like a plague over the walls. The contact was immediate and horrific — the Atlantean soldiers who couldn't get clear in time began to scream, a melody of agony that was quickly drowned out as their armor and bodies dissolved, corroded by the acid's potency.
The stone of the wall hissed under the acid's touch, beginning to give way and crumble as if it were sand.
On the other side of the front, the situation was no more hopeful.
The colossal turtle, taking advantage of the fire that had been keeping it at bay dispersing and Shuri's beam ceasing its effect, shook its enormous mass. Its mouth opened, creating a vortex around it that sucked in vast quantities of water.
A second later, the accumulated water was expelled with devastating pressure in a 360-degree radius. The soldiers of the drill squadron — who had been trying to advance their positions — were swept away and practically vaporized.
Those who had been hammering the beast with heavy fire shared the same grim fate, reduced to nothing by the shockwave.
The turtle, though visibly exhausted after the colossal effort, held its ground. It still had the strength to keep destroying everything in its path.
Shuri got to her feet with difficulty, her legs trembling under the weight of reality. Before her, the horror unfolded with unbearable clarity — she could see how the skin was peeling from the soldiers' bodies, exposing a bone structure that was rapidly dissolving under the acid's corrosion. The screams of pain, muffled by the density of the water, drilled into her ears.
Byrrah grabbed her by the shoulders with urgency and shook her violently, forcing her to look at him.
"Shuri, listen to me! You have to retreat now!" he shouted, his face contorted. "My soldiers and I will buy as much time as we can. You need to get as far away as possible."
Shuri wasn't responding — her eyes, fixed on the disaster, were clouded with shock. Byrrah, seeing she wasn't reacting, lowered his voice for a moment.
"If the King wakes..." he said, but his voice cut off abruptly when he felt something enormous behind him.
Turning around, the world stopped. The giant eel rose above them, blocking the light from the defensive towers, staring at them fixedly with its enormous eyes.
Byrrah didn't hesitate — he shoved Shuri back with a sudden motion.
"Run!"
He drew his sword, the metal gleaming with suicidal determination.
"For the pride of Atlantis, I will not retreat!" he roared, and charged forward, seeking a weak point in the beast.
The eel barely flinched. With a contemptuous sweep of its body, it lashed with its tail. Byrrah interposed his sword, tensing every muscle to absorb the impact, but the force was overwhelming. The Atlantean general was sent flying like a projectile, crashing into the remnants of a distant column.
Shuri remained motionless, paralyzed before the creature that eclipsed everything. Then, a deep vibration resonated directly in her mind — beyond spoken language.
"The crystal..." the eel's voice wasn't sound — it was more like an intention she could interpret. "Guide me to the crystal. Return it... and perhaps you will survive."
Shuri had barely begun to process the demand, feeling her consciousness fracture under it, when suddenly a silver flash cut through the water at an incalculable speed.
Something — or someone — struck the eel's flank with brutal force. The blow was so savage that the creature was sent flying backward, launched beyond the limits of the walls, leaving behind a trail of bubbles and sediment.
Namor hung suspended in the water with a presence so imposing he looked like a statue carved from the deep.
His eyes scanned the disaster with coldness, taking in every corner of the battlefield without needing to turn his head. In the distance, the colossal turtle was beginning to open its jaws again, sucking in the water around it for another devastating shot.
Seeing this, Namor propelled himself forward, becoming a golden blur in the ocean at superhuman speed.
Before the beast could close its mouth, the King of Talokan plunged directly into the abyss of its throat. The creature, surprised, snapped its jaws shut.
For a few moments, the external chaos seemed to pause. Then, from inside the shell, dull, rhythmic, brutal impacts began to resonate. The beast let out a pitiful moan. A thread of dark blood began to seep through its jaws, staining its eyes and nostrils as the colossal body writhed in involuntary spasms.
The internal blows increased in intensity, destroying the beast's vital organs from the inside.
The turtle, completely disoriented, lost focus in its eyes, which began to roll in their sockets. It vomited a dense cloud of blood before its system collapsed entirely.
Movement ceased — its immense body, now inert, drifted like a dead mountain on the ocean floor.
The creature's jaw fell open. From that visceral interior, a pair of hands appeared, forcing the opening with fierce strength.
Namor emerged from the throat, covered from head to toe in a thick, red layer of blood.
With a gesture of his hand, he manipulated the currents around him — the water spun in a fast whirlpool that swept every drop of vital fluid from his skin and his armor.
Within just a few seconds, he was immaculate again.
It was then that the eel appeared behind Namor, dropping its camouflage in the blink of an eye.
It opened its jaws wide and expelled a thick jet of black liquid, drenching the prince completely. The scene lasted only a few seconds, but from outside one could see how a sphere of water enveloped Namor's body as he stood stoic, watching the creature through his liquid shield.
Seeing that its attack had no effect, the beast lashed with its tail, trying to slam him against the ruins.
The prince, however, stopped it with a single hand, creating a great shockwave as he stepped back slightly.
The eel didn't give up — it opened its mouth again, seeking to tear the prince's body apart.
It knew swallowing him was a death sentence, so it tried to split him in two. Its teeth sank in, but Namor didn't flinch — he didn't even change expression as he held the creature's tail while his body was pierced.
"Ancient creature of the deep... I warned you once that if you ever returned to Atlantis, I would hang your head in the throne room. Do you remember?"
The eel's eyes went wide with terror, trying to retreat, but Namor seized its skull.
He sank his fingers into the beast's flesh, which let out a sharp shriek. It thrashed erratically, desperate to escape, but the prince held his grip.
With devastating force, he advanced and slammed the titanic beast against the stone floor within the walls.
Shuri, watching from a safe distance, saw Namor position himself above the monster's head and drive his hands deeply into it.
The creature let out a scream as it expelled a torrent of corrosive acid directly onto him. This time, Namor created no shield. The venom bathed his body, slowly melting his skin, but before the princess's astonished eyes, his flesh began to regenerate at an incredible speed. His healing factor, combined with his body's natural resistance, fought against the acid and won — his skin returning to normal.
The prince, his fingers still buried in the beast's skull, sentenced it coldly.
"No one touches Atlantis and lives to tell it. Not while I am here."
Then his arms tensed.
He began to tear, separating the head from the body until the sound of flesh and bone giving way flooded the area. The eel's body shuddered for a few moments from pure reflex before going completely still.
Shuri watched as Namor's muscles relaxed and his skin returned to its normal appearance.
The prince rose, lifting the remains of the giant eel's head high before the entire sector.
Around him, the few Atlantean warriors who had survived the assault raised their spears and weapons, releasing a roar of victory that echoed through the ocean's depths.
A few meters away, leaning against the rubble of a toppled column, Byrrah watched the scene with labored breathing. Both his arms hung at unnatural angles, fractured by the earlier impact, and his armor was completely soaked in blood.
Despite the searing pain running through his body, he never took his eyes off his cousin.
====
HEYYYY, HOW'S EVERYONE DOING? HOPE YOU'RE ALL WELL!
AS FOR ME, I CAUGHT A COLD, SO WRITING WITH ANY MOTIVATION HAS BEEN A STRUGGLE.
AS YOU CAN SEE, THE TITAN THREAT WAS RESOLVED WITH NAMOR TAKING CARE OF THOSE TWO ENORMOUS CREATURES IN THE END WHILE SHURI WATCHED. OUR PROTAGONIST ALSO UNLOCKED A NEW AQUATIC TRANSFORMATION — YEEEY!
REMEMBER THAT IF YOU'D LIKE TO SUPPORT ADDITIONALLY, WE HAVE PATREON:
patreon.com/EmptyTag
IF YOU FIND ANY ERRORS OR ANYTHING SIMILAR, PLEASE POINT THEM OUT
SORRY IF YOU FIND ANY ISSUES OR ANYTHING FEELS OFF — IT'S BEEN HARD TO WRITE COHERENTLY. I'LL READ IT OVER TOMORROW IN CASE SOMETHING CAME OUT WRONG OR SOUNDS STRANGE.
AS ALWAYS, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR COMMENTS AND ALL YOUR SUPPORT.
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES 😘