Chapter 6: The Eggs of the Lake Monster
The lake was a sheet of polished obsidian under the moonless sky. Visibility was nearly zero, the darkness broken only by the single, swaying lantern held by Klein at the bow of their small boat. Grandpa Max, sleeves rolled up, grunted with each pull of the oars, his breath misting in the frigid night air.
"Hoo… hah… Still got it!" he wheezed, trying to rally himself. "Who knew rowing was such a workout?"
From the middle of the boat, Ben bounced on his seat, a bundle of nervous energy. "Grandpa, faster! Jonah Melville is going to catch the Great Lake Monster before we do!"
"Don't you underestimate your grandpa, Ben," Max retorted, putting more muscle into his strokes, the boat surging forward slightly. "Back in my day, I was one of the best Plumbers in the business. This is nothing."
Their quiet bickering was suddenly drowned out by a cacophony of roaring engines and frantic shouting from across the water.
Through the gloom, they saw it. A small, clunky submersible, piloted by Jonah Melville himself, was leading a large fishing trawler crewed by a dozen armed poachers. They were firing harpoons and rifles at a massive, serpentine creature that kept breaching the surface, its roars of fury echoing across the lake. Jonah, clearly underestimating his quarry, was barking orders through a megaphone.
"Careful, you fools! Protect those eggs! I don't want to be cleaning up the world's most expensive omelet!" He lowered the megaphone, a greedy smirk on his face as he muttered to himself, "Once I sell these beauties to the highest bidder, it's nothing but piña coladas in the Bahamas for me."
Captain Shaw's little tour boat was nowhere in sight, likely having fled the chaos.
"Look! Over there!" Ben pointed a shaking finger at the trawler's deck. A tall, cylindrical glass container stood secured by ropes, holding two colossal, pearlescent eggs. "Those have to be the monster's eggs! Melville stole them! No wonder she's going ballistic!"
Klein lowered the lantern, his expression unreadable. "Grandpa, you guys go get the eggs. I'll play with them for a bit."
He raised his left wrist, the face of the Omnitrix glowing a soft, cyan blue. With a casual motion, he slapped his right hand down on the dial.
"Articguana!"
A blinding flash of blue-white light erupted from the boat, momentarily silhouetting the three Tennysons. Where Klein had stood, a new figure emerged: a bipedal, reptilian alien covered in tough blue hide. Thick, powerful forelimbs ended in sharp claws, and prominent gills flared on the sides of its neck.
Articguana took a deep breath and unleashed a beam of cryogenic energy. The blast of supercooled air hit the lake's surface with a sharp crackle, instantly flash-freezing a path of solid ice. He then swept his head upward, the beam raking across the enraged lake monster and the poachers' trawler. In a heartbeat, the thrashing beast and the entire boat were encased in a massive, glistening ice sculpture, frozen mid-action.
"A Polar Manzardillan!" Grandpa Max gasped, his eyes wide with a recognition that went far beyond simple surprise.
"Grandpa, what are you talking about?" Ben and Gwen asked in unison, completely baffled.
"Uh, nothing!" Max said, quickly shaking his head. "Come on, let's go get those eggs while we have the chance."
He expertly guided their small boat alongside the frozen trawler. The three of them clambered onto the icy deck, carefully making their way toward the container.
Just as they wrapped their hands around the cold glass, a poacher who had been shielded from the initial blast stepped out from behind a winch, leveling a rifle at them. "You picked the wrong day to be heroes," he sneered. "Now back off before you get hurt."
"You could've done this the easy way," Grandpa Max sighed, raising his hands and shielding his grandkids as they slowly backed away.
The goon chuckled, his smile predatory as he advanced on them.
Before he could take another step, a concentrated beam of icy energy shot across the deck and enveloped him. He was frozen solid in an instant, his sinister smile preserved in a mask of frost.
The Tennysons didn't waste a second. They rushed forward, lifted the heavy container, and started to hustle back to their boat. As Gwen passed the human popsicle, she couldn't resist a parting shot.
"So," she quipped, "was that the easy way or the hard way?"
"Klein! Catch!" Max shouted, managing to unlatch the container and heave one of the massive eggs toward the shore where Articguana stood.
CRACK! BANG!
With a tremendous shudder, the ice encasing the trawler and the lake monster began to fracture. Jonah Melville, piloting his submersible, burst free from his crystalline prison, followed moments later by the enraged mother monster.
"My eggs!" Jonah screamed, his voice tinny over the sub's external speaker as he saw the precious cargo sailing through the air.
"Your eggs aren't this big!" Articguana retorted, deftly catching the first egg and turning just in time for Max to toss him the second. Cradling one under each arm, he stomped his powerful right foot onto the frozen lake.
BOOM!
A massive fissure split the ice. Without hesitation, Articguana leaped into the dark, frigid water, the eggs held securely against his chest.
ROAR!
Seeing her children being taken deeper into the lake, the mother monster immediately dove, her powerful tail propelling her in hot pursuit.
"My eggs!" Jonah shrieked again, fumbling with the controls of his submersible. But the strain of breaking free from the ice had drained its power reserves, and several systems were still frozen solid. The machine whined and sputtered, refusing to move.
Deep beneath the surface, Articguana swam with surprising speed and agility, the monster hot on his tail. Her long, powerful tentacles lashed out, trying to ensnare him, but he twisted and dodged through the murky depths, evading each strike.
He swam for what felt like an eternity, searching the lakebed for the creature's nest. The sheer size of the lake made it a daunting task. For a moment, he considered just handing the eggs over directly, but a flicker of pride stopped him. 'No,'he thought,'If I just give them to her, she'll think I'm scared and just chase me off. I'm not doing all this work for nothing.' The thought, once it took root, was stubborn. He had to see this through properly.
After several more minutes of searching, he finally spotted it: a large, irregularly circular depression on the lake floor, lined with softer sediment. A mix of relief and annoyance washed over him. 'Seriously? I had to swim across half the lake to find this? Is my luck really that bad?'
He swam down and, in full view of the hovering mother monster, gently placed the two eggs into the center of the nest.
The creature's aggression vanished instantly. She drifted forward, coiling her massive body protectively around the nest, her tentacles softly caressing the surface of her eggs. She paid him no further mind.
His job done, Articguana turned and swam for the surface, not wanting to disturb the family reunion.
SPLASH!
He broke through the water, shaking his head to clear it.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
A hail of bullets peppered his tough hide, bouncing off harmlessly. Jonah Melville, having managed to get his trawler partially operational, was firing a deck-mounted machine gun at him. His men had rounded up the Tennysons and now held them at gunpoint.
"You lizard freak!" Jonah bellowed, his face contorted with rage. "Give me back my eggs, or your little friends here are going to have a very bad day!"
Articguana's head snapped toward the boat. He saw Grandpa Max, Ben, and Gwen, bound and held captive. The playful glint in his eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, deadly calm. 'Fighting a few small-time crooks is one thing,'Klein thought, his internal monologue turning sharp as steel.'That's just a game. But you don't involve my family. The game is over.'
He raised a hand and slapped the Omnitrix symbol on his chest.
"Way Big!"
The cyan light that erupted this time was not a flash, but an explosion. It shot skyward like a beacon, and from within it, a figure began to grow at an impossible rate. Water churned and displaced, creating a tidal wave that rocked the trawler violently. The figure rose higher and higher, dwarfing the boat, the trees, everything.
When the light faded, a colossus stood in the middle of the lake, over one hundred and fifty feet tall. Its red-and-white body was built like a mountain, a single fin crested its head, and blade-like growths jutted from its shoulders and waist. On its chest, the Omnitrix symbol glowed a serene, cyan blue. To his family, he was a savior. To his enemies, he was Armageddon.
"A To'kustar!" Grandpa Max breathed, a note of pure awe in his voice.
Way Big extended a hand the size of a small house and gently, almost delicately, plucked the three Tennysons from the deck. The surrounding poachers dropped their weapons and scrambled away, some diving into the freezing water in their panic.
"Cousin, you're awesome! This giant is so cool!" Ben yelled, ecstatic. He then turned to his grandpa. "There you go again, saying stuff we don't understand! What are you talking about?"
Jonah Melville stared up at the titan looming over him, a cold sweat beading on his forehead. "Uh… buddy," he stammered, his voice trembling. "Look, I tied them up, but you took the eggs. Let's just call it even, okay? We can just… walk away."
Way Big's massive head tilted down, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the very air. "Even?" He raised his other hand. "You have a very generous definition of the word."
He brought his hand down.
CRUNCH!
The frozen trawler didn't just break; it atomized. Wood, steel, and ice shattered into a million pieces, sending the remaining poachers tumbling into the dark water.
Way Big placed the Tennysons safely on the shore and turned to leave. As he did, his super-powered vision caught a flicker of movement far in the distance, something his normal eyes would never have seen. It was gone in an instant.
…
Not long after, the wail of sirens filled the air as the local police arrived to round up the surviving, half-frozen poachers. During their search of the lake, they found Captain Shaw, alive and clinging to a piece of driftwood. He had miraculously survived the entire ordeal.
As they pulled him from the water, shivering and delirious, he was still muttering one word over and over again.
"Monster… my monster…"
It seemed he and the Great Lake Monster had found true love after all.
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