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Twenty seconds. Five giant apes on the ground.
The ones still standing stared at their fallen companions and felt something cold bloom in their chests. Their forward momentum slowed, then stopped. Somewhere in the back of their minds, the thought of retreat was already forming.
The giant standing in the earth below them was a terrifying thing.
"Roar..." Even the Wise One, crystal battle axe in hand, had let its mouth fall open. This wasn't anything close to what it had imagined.
This is the combat ability Ultraman is supposed to have?
Is this how tokusatsu actually works? Hey , Ultraman, are you out of your mind!?
It half-wondered if someone had slipped something into its last meal and this was all a hallucination.
But the voice that rang through its mind was very, very real.
"I am a member of the Space Garrison from the M78 Nebula Land of Light." The giant's voice was low and hollow, carrying across the silence. "I will give you two choices. Surrender and be locked in the Cosmic Prison — or resist, and be executed where you stand."
When it met those bright, steady eyes, the Wise One felt the weight of a higher civilization pressing down on it.
It had almost forgotten. These Ultraman types... they were space cops.
And it was a Traveler. Which meant it was exactly the kind of target they hunted. It was the prey. The giant was the hunter.
"Roar!"
"Roar roar!" Escape. The thought detonated in its mind. It slapped the flat of its axe against the nearest giant apes and sent them charging forward.
Then it turned and ran.
The ground shook with every stride.
"Roar ow!"
"Roar ow!!"
The giant apes it had brought to seize the Hollow Earth passage were loyal creatures. The command drove them. The deep, instinctive hunger to devour the giant drove them harder. Together, those two things crushed the fear. All four raised their stone tools and charged.
The giant read the situation in an instant.
Its left hand swept across the bracelet on its right wrist. The bracelet flared green. A ring of anti-gravity light pulsed outward and locked onto the two closest apes, lifting them off the ground.
Then it jumped.
It flipped clean in midair, riding the fall, and aimed the descent at one of the remaining apes.
The Swallow Kick came down.
THUD!!
The ape swung its stone club up to block. Bad idea. The kick hit with concentrated energy and gravitational force behind it, and the club didn't slow it at all , the stone shattered into fragments. The force that came after struck the ape full-on, and its massive body shot backward like a cannonball, gouged a long furrow through the ground, and smashed into the rock wall. It didn't get back up.
The giant landed. Two apes immediately closed in from both sides , one with a stone spear, one with a stone axe.
One hand open, one fist closed.
The moment they attacked, the open hand shot out and grabbed the spear mid-thrust, redirecting it. The angle shifted perfectly, and the spear's shaft caught the axe coming down from the other side and knocked it wide.
The spear-wielder tried to yank its weapon back. The giant was stronger. The yank pulled the ape forward instead , off-balance, stumbling directly into the fist already swinging toward its gut. The punch landed in the abdomen. Force rippled through its organs. The ape's eyes went wide, foam at its mouth, and before it could recover the giant planted a straight kick into it.
THUD!
It went airborne.
The giant turned, both palms already glowing.
Behind it, the axe-wielder had reset its footing and was swinging again. The axe never finished the arc. Two light blasts fired from between the giant's palms. BOOM BOOM!! "OWW!!" The explosion launched the ape backward. It hit the wall hard, head dropping to the side, out cold.
During all of this, the Wise One had been running. It didn't look back. It didn't want to look back. The plan was simple: get clear, wait out the three-minute timer every Ultraman ran on, then come back.
It crossed the boundary of the Iwi tribe's territory.
THUD!! THUD!!
Two massive bodies slammed into the ground in front of it like cannonballs dropped from height. The two apes the gravity ray had been holding — now unconscious, a couple of teeth each shorter than before , landed directly in its path.
The Wise One stared at them.
It swallowed.
It turned around slowly, joints stiff.
The terrifying giant was hovering in the air directly behind it. Light was building at its wrist, blazing and hot. One arm was already raised.
Oh, hell.
It's charging a finisher.
The Wise One understood immediately , the giant hadn't been going all out against the apes. That had been crowd control. This was the real thing.
"Roar! Roar roar!"
Facing actual death, it made a very fast calculation. It couldn't run. It couldn't fight. It threw both arms straight up and roared.
I surrender!
Spare me and I'll do anything! The crystal battle axe , symbol of its authority, its status , got hurled aside without a second thought. Every thought in its head was a variation of please don't.
Its combat ability outclassed the other apes. Didn't matter. It was nowhere near Ultraman's level and it knew it.
Things from tokusatsu shows aren't supposed to be like this. This thing is standing in front of me acting like an actual god. Where's the law? Where's the justice!?
How is anyone supposed to fight that!?
Why did it have to be stupid enough to come here with just these guys... If it had brought Scar King and the Snow Monster along, maybe , maybe , the numbers would've changed something.
Going one-on-one with an Ultraman right now?
It had absolutely no interest in finding out what the Specium Ray tasted like.
The giant saw the surrender. The light at its wrist faded. The raised arm came down.
"Swoosh swoosh swoosh—"
The tough vines growing across the ground answered the giant's call, flying in from every direction, winding around the Wise One and pulling tight until it was bound completely.
The giant descended.
It turned toward the Iwi tribe's territory , toward where Jia was , and gave a slow, single nod.
Its massive form dissolved into motes of light and scattered on the wind.
...
Outside the Iwi tribe's stone temple, the priest stood motionless as the last specks of light faded. She couldn't find her way back to herself for a long time.
That giant, born from the light , it possessed power that dwarfed any Titan she had ever known. All those Titan apes together had lasted barely over a minute against it.
Perhaps only the atomic dinosaur, the one that had just consumed a "star," could even approach that level.
He... did you bring him here? the priest asked Jia.
When the giant had first appeared, Jia had been sitting in its palm. There had to be a connection between them.
He is an Ultraman.
He is very gentle. Jia smiled. A very good person.
➤ Next: Threat — The Conversation
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