Atlantis faded behind him as Kaius ascended into the open ocean, kicking through the pressure with practiced rhythm. The water shimmered against the reflections of the city's distant lights — a glowing beacon in the deep.
But as he moved, the silence of the ocean stirred something in him.
A memory.
---
Four Years Ago – The Trench
The cold bit deeper the farther down they went. Visibility was near zero.
Kaius — barely 13 — floated in place, his trident held in both hands, struggling to maintain focus as the blackness swirled around him. Beside him, Aquarus hovered like a glacier wrapped in a tidal current — calm, powerful, unreadable.
"Stop flinching," the king said. "You can't strike what you fear."
"I don't fear it—" Kaius began, jaw tight.
"Then prove it."
Without warning, Aquarus struck. The blunt end of his trident whipped through the water and slammed into Kaius's side, sending him tumbling backward into a jagged coral wall.
Kaius gritted his teeth, growled low, and surged back.
They clashed.
Again and again.
Water twisted around them in vortices, displacing silt and microcurrents. Kaius's trident whirled, clashed, scraped, and finally stabbed forward with purpose. The tip stopped just shy of Aquarus's throat.
The king smiled.
"Good. Again."
---
Present – Ocean Rift
Kaius exhaled, a small stream of bubbles leaving his lips. Even now, the muscle memory from those sessions served him. Aquarus was never warm, but he was never careless. He forged Kaius like pressure shapes a pearl — painful, relentless, and permanent.
He reached the edge of a reef wall and perched atop a seamount to check his path.
And then — a soft pulse vibrated through the water.
A faint, repeating ping emanated from a small bracer on his arm. The screen lit up, projecting a holographic signal symbol — The Definite's crest. Not the Guardians' alert... Teen Team's.
He tapped the device. A short message blinked across the interface:
> ALERT – Possible Bio-Terror Incident – Midtown
Urgency: HIGH
Availability: Optional
Note from Definite: "If you're free, we could use your trident, Tidebreaker."
Kaius narrowed his eyes. He wasn't part of the Teen Team— not officially. But after two years of surface experience and occasional team-ups with Teen Team, he'd agreed to assist when he wasn't guarding Atlantis.
And right now?
He was free.
"Looks like the surface needs this prince again."
He adjusted his bracer, angled upward, and with a beat of his razor-winged ankles, he shot out of the deep like a harpoon, toward the surface, toward the next storm.
Absolutely — here's the next chapter, full of cinematic action and highlighting Kaius's dramatic entrance and raw power.
The ocean erupted in a column of white water as Kaius burst forth like a spear thrown by the gods. The air kissed his skin with cold wind as the razor-sharp, flying fish-like wings on his ankles spread and shimmered, slicing through the sky as he gained altitude.
The alert from Robot pulsed again on his bracer.
Midtown. Civilian count: 57. Enemy count: 12. Meta signatures: 4.
His jaw tightened.
"On my way."
With a whip of his legs and a push from his aerokinetically enhanced flight, Kaius turned into a blue-and-silver blur across the skyline, trailing mist and energy like a streak of lightning racing above the rooftops.
---
Explosions rocked the street. A toppled bus burned beside a crater. Civilians screamed behind makeshift barriers while Teen Team — Dupli-Kate, Rex Splode, and Atom Eve — were pinned down near the bank's collapsed entrance. Robot hovered above, managing a shield field to protect the civilians, but the load was taxing even his systems.
A group of black-clad terrorists — armed with military-grade plasma rifles — moved with shocking coordination. Among them were the metas: a man with molten skin and fire breath, another in armored skin reinforced like stone, a telekinetic tossing debris like missiles, and a speedster already a blur between shots.
"Keep the civvies covered!" Rex shouted, launching a volley of explosive discs that forced the enemy back for mere seconds.
"We're running out of time!" Dupli-Kate warned, her duplicates shielding children behind a flipped car.
Then — a silence.
A sound like a falling bomb.
All heads turned upward.
FWOOOSH!
A blue blur shot downward from the clouds.
Kaius.
The wind screamed around him as he descended like divine judgment, trident spinning in one hand, the wings on his ankles flaring open, glowing faintly from the speed.
He slammed into the pavement like a comet, causing a shockwave that sent debris flying and knocked several armed mercenaries off their feet.
The ground cracked beneath his boots.
He rose slowly, expression calm, eyes locked on the meta-villains as if they were little more than insects.
"You bring weapons to a city filled with innocents," he said, voice carrying like a current. "You threatened lives beneath my skies."
"Who the hell is this guy—" one of the mercs began before being silenced by Kaius's cold glare.
One of the metas — the brute with stone skin — roared and charged, arms like wrecking balls.
Kaius didn't flinch.
He turned toward a crushed city bus beside him, gripped its dented frame with both hands, and with a deep, ocean-born growl, he hurled the entire vehicle like a javelin.
The metal projectile slammed into the brute mid-charge, launching him like a ragdoll into a building wall, where he collapsed in a cloud of dust and smoke.
"He just threw a bus," Rex muttered, stunned.
"That's Tidebreaker," Robot stated. "We're back in the game."
Kaius spun his trident once, pointing it toward the remaining enemies, his voice like thunder rolling over the battlefield.
"Now. Who's next?"