Relic-Verse: Champions of Hope

Chapter 1

-- Part 1 --

The moonlight illuminated the white surface of Squidling's armor as he peeked into a second story warehouse window, his black visor concealing his entire face and scanning the warehouse, a small blip appearing on his built in radar. Weeks after the signal vanished, a small tracking device he had planted suddenly came back online, which led him to quickly tracking it down, and now staring into what can only be described as the belly of the beast.

Inside the warehouse was, in all his toothy glory, Great Mako. With tough blue-grey skin, fins on his back, a shark-like head, and rows upon rows of endlessly growing teeth, the brute had somehow managed to evade capture for nearly an entire year.

And I'm going to take him down, he thought, building up his ink storage as he monitored the beast.

Great Mako was lumbering around the warehouse, occasionally smashing open boxes and rummaging inside before continuing on. From the looks of it, the villain hadn't noticed the black visor stalking his every move from outside.

"Dammit! How hard can a search and fetch be?!" In his rage he threw a box across the warehouse, hitting just beneath the window Squidling was looking through, and causing the hero to duck and hide. "Big wooden crate. Big. Wooden. Crate. THEY ARE ALL BIG WOODEN CRATES!"

What is he looking for? Deciding to ignore the villain's treasure hunt, Squidling started thinking through his next move. He's a brute. So avoid being in his face. But in his last encounter with Koinet he had a machine in his mouth that shot out explosive teeth. So stay moving. Easy enough.

Poking his head back up he saw the shark's back turned, and slowly started to open the window and slip inside onto the catwalk. Seconds after he got in, something must have ticked the beast off, as he roared, causing Squidling to jump and dive behind some haphazardly stacked boxes, leaving the window to slam shut.

Oh no.

"WHO'S THERE?!" Great Mako spun around and shot off a tooth right into the window, shattering it and sending glass everywhere. "Get out here and fight me!"

Squidling stayed silent, not daring to move as he heard the villain walk closer to him. "I can smell your fear, you know!" Even though deep down Squidling was pretty sure he couldn't, the closeness of the villain caused him to try and shift into a better position, which led to his hand landing on some of the shattered glass.

Time seemed to freeze for him. He slowly lifted up his palm and watched a small trickle of blood run down his glove.

"Found you!" Squidling threw himself away from his hiding spot as it exploded from a bomb tooth shot by the villain. The young hero stood up and immediately turned to face Great Mako in the eyes. "Not even a high level hero?! I get the bottom of the barrel scraps?! Seriously?!" The appearance of Squidling only irked the villain off more, which led to a barrage of teeth being shot at him.

Squidling ducked and dived out of the way, dodging most of the teeth, with only a few managing to scratch against his armor. "You know, who needs a stronger hero? You're a pretty bad shot!"

The villain's eye twitched, "Let's see you dodge this, punk!" He fired off bomb teeth at the catwalk, and before Squidling could react, the platform exploded and sent him tumbling to the warehouse floor.

Squidling landed on his back, kicking up a small cloud of splinters as he struggled to sit up, before looking up and seeing the red eyes of Great Mako towering over him. "Lights out ki-" without thinking Squidling shot off a stream of ink from his fingertips, right into the eyes of the villain, causing him to roar in pain.