Arcollossus

     A hundred miles off of San Felix and San Ambrosio a storm raises the waves high above the height of the tiny research vessel. Something else is out there however, something that splits the waves apart as it moves unimpeded by the storm. Great hooked spikes, metallic blue with a hint of a silver edge, almost dorsal fin like as they adorn a massive dark blue semi-dome with hexagonal plates of which each adorns one of the spikes. This strange structure rips through the waves and the tiny research vessel with no more concern than a twig in the water. The news of this loss would barely be covered. The papers from Chile would call it a lost at sea during a storm, a search party would turn up from their last location almost nothing but some debris that in a few days would wash ashore near Valparaiso confirming the ship was destroyed during the storm.

     ******

     Disaster off the coast of Peru, a join Peruvian and United States naval research mission fleet are destroyed. The distress call is hard to interpret, at first stating that their radar has picked up an unknown submersible that is not answering back any hails. Then there is a horrific sound and the call cuts off. By the time reinforcements arrive only one of the naval ships is still above water, and only four people are both alive and coherent enough to be interrogated. The story they have to tell is chalked up to stress from such a ruthless attack, for they are saying it was a gigantic blue and silver sea turtle with spikes on its back and along the edges of its shell. They claim it was swimming near them and the second they focused their radar on it, it turned and attacked them, surfacing easily overpowering what few ships they had with its speed and ferocity.

   That of course would be kept under wraps as much as possible, yet it leaks to the media. Most mainstream news stories are calling it a terrorist attack, or from an as yet identified aggressor nation or faction making its first move against American Military in South America. Naturally some are calling the attack a hoax, citing the “giant sea turtle” story the “so called survivors” have been telling as a plan-A for something even the conspiracy nuts have a hard time trying to spin. The comedy news stations would play off the giant killer sea turtle angle for all its worth.

  The US Navy however sends out submarines and ships, after all as far as they are concerned there is a submarine or fleet of ships capable of and willing to sink American vessels.

     ******

     Nothing, days and nothing, no signs of anything off the coast of Peru, the Chilean government is on alert as the incident happened just north of their boarders, however nothing. Ecuador, nothing, Columbia, nothing…and then it happens.

   Like a living Tsunami it surfaces at the mouth of the Panama Canal, how it avoided radar detection a mystery, but not the most important one right now. Now the world sees it, a massive sea turtle whose sheer size dwarfs a battleship, it hulls its self up on it massive unnatural light blue flippers lined with claw like spikes and looks around with its blue head and piercing green eyes before it continues to force its way into the man made canal. The massive creature smashes its way through the locks and any ships unlucky enough to be in its way. All the firepower the guards have to muster is nothing, it doesn’t even notice. They might as well be trying to shoot at the side of a mountain hoping to make it back away. Its speed is incredible, especially for its size as in mere hours its clear of the lock and back into the sea. Once back in the sea it vanishes beneath the waves. It is the greatest disaster to ever hit the country of Panama.


     ******

    Newspapers all over the world, especially thanks to the internet carry the story, there are pictures now, now of a giant monster sea turtle. It isn’t long before the monster film genre title of “Kaiju” is slapped onto the beast. Some scientists claim the creature is an Archelon, a giant prehistoric sea turtle. This notion is scoffed at for several reasons, one this creature clearly has a hard shell whose shape and texture is closer to that of a snapping turtle, although the length of the spikes is unique, no other turtle has spikes on its flippers like this, the coloration despite never seeing a living archelon is just odd for any turtle, where this animal appeared, also this animal is roughly two hundred feet long while the archelon topped off at twelve feet long. Naturally other scientists are pointing out that an animal this big can’t exist, and to pull its self out of the water the way it did and rampage like a movie monster is impossible; they believe it to be something manmade.

    Regardless of scientific scrutiny the media grabs onto the name “Archelon”, before long they are calling it the Colossal Archelon, and then someone on some message board shortens it, with a bit of a spelling error or two as “Arcollossus” and the next thing anyone knows the name is everywhere spelling errors and all, even when those are pointed out on comedy sites. The questions people seem to be forgetting however are, why did it go through the Panam Canal? How does it exist? And given how fast it went through the canal into the Caribbean Sea…where is it now?

     ******

     The sea is bathed in fire, or at least that is how the Cuban government has put it. Arcollossus the giant sea turtle has been spotted between Cuba and Haiti, the Cuban government wasting no time declares war on the creature regardless of if it is manmade or a natural creature. In the televised battle the world sees just how resilient the monster truly is, as well as a trick it had waiting; the monster gulps in a massive amount of water and then blasts it out with enough force to split apart the hull of a warship and rip apart jets in mid-air. The Cuban military didn’t stand a chance. It is learned not much later the American government knew where Arcollossus was and the direction it was heading thanks to sightings off of Jamaica.

   ******

   Following a publicity nightmare the President of the United States has issued that the military make public and keep track of Arcollossus, especially as it is heading north. Despite warnings of it heading towards the Bahamas and the Florida Keys the public does the exact opposite of what is expected; they head towards the area to see the monster, the see the swimming mountain. It heads up the coastline, being spotted and watched by tourists and curious onlookers all along the Eastern Seaboard. However it’s not exactly pleasing to the government that as it heads north it is also not being shy about being close to shore and swimming along the surface; a behavior the great beast has not displayed until now, previously keeping to deeper waters.

    That is when it happens, the monster makes landfall, and at the worst possible place, Manhattan. No one knows why it would come ashore here, the news frantically tries to say it must be some ancient prehistoric instinct distorted by changes in landmass. Regardless, it utterly devastates the water way and streets as it makes its way inland. There are a things the movies tend to forget when it comes to something this heavy and this big entering a major city, one the streets tend to be hollow with drains, sewers, power lanes, and subways as well as underground passages, and the other is, its not just the weight of a kaiju but also the amount of force it must use just to move around that becomes a major issue. It smashes through the streets like they were made of crackers covering ant tunnels, buildings shake, windows break, power is out in mere seconds as all the numerous power lines snap like spider web thin threads. Concrete and brick buildings might as well be made of sand and Styrofoam before the giant beast as it makes its way inland. People flee the streets, some idiots going up stairs to try and get pictures of it from above, helicopters follow it, the city declares a state of emergency ordering everyone off the streets.

   By the time the air force has mobilized and is heading in the monster has stopped in central park and is digging a massive hole with its back flippers. What happens next will have the scientific community on edge, as well as the military given what it may imply, as the monster laying eggs. The air force takes this opportunity to strike, however nothing fazes the goliath as it continues what nature has programmed it to do. Upon burying its eggs it heads back down the demolished path it made into the sea.

     ******

    Despite the devastation it caused it doesn’t take long for animal rights activists to appear and protest as the government announces plans to dig up and demolish the kaiju eggs, citing the destruction Arcollossus caused, how easily it bested battleships and aircraft, and was seemingly immune to conventional weaponry. They would protest still, that it is just an animal. Fears however are ignited throughout the pacific at the thought that there might be a second Arcollossus, a male, or even more waking up somewhere or mutating. The city of New York over-rules the protestors and digs up the eggs, at least to move them to a safer location than the middle of a city. In secret the government breaks open one egg, intended to create an “accident” to destroy them or claim they didn’t stay warm enough where the “foolish monster mother” laid them; however testing shows it would be pointless, as the eggs are infertile.

   All that destruction, loss of human life, billions in property damage, following its reptilian instincts to lay its eggs, and after all that, the eggs are simply infertile.

   -The world would remain on watch for where the monster might go, thankfully this time it stays away from shore and is last sighted in the open Atlantic between South America and Africa. The issue with the eggs is quickly forgotten or at least no longer cared about by the American public at large which has shown a disturbing tendency to only care about disasters for a short amount of time so long it didn’t directly affect them.

   “So…no one has any idea where the monster came from?”

  “No sir,”

  “Not even the American government?”

  “Our inside sources report that they are just as in the dark as anyone else sir.”

  “Good…make sure it stays that way.”