Chapter 1 - The Coffin on the Sea
The ocean waters lapped at the side of the 30-foot boat as it slowed down off the coast of Sternbild City. Sun rays bounced playfully off of the water to reflect on the blue and white paint of the boat as the engine cut out, the seafoam bursting apart to send small flecks of the boat's name. The Tomoe bobbed a bit as it slowed with the incoming waves: her captain stood at the helm, smiling brightly at the relatively calm water.
Kotetsu T. Kaburagi was just an average guy out on an average boat ride with his average friend Antonio Lopez. Or so he would have preferred if Kotetsu's life could even average. Away from the perfectly average dream world he tried to live in, Kotetsu was a Coast Guard officer who joined after finding out how really boring and excruciatingly repetitive it was to be a lifeguard. He was also a NEXT with the ability to amplify his strength one-hundredfold which usually made the beach goers uncomfortable if he ever needed to use them. As an office of the Coast Guard however, the skill came in handy when there was a need for crushing to be done in order to stop criminals trying to smuggle God Knows what out of Sternbild City. His best friend Antonio was also not so-average. The latino man was himself a NEXT and chose to live a quieter life as a hardware store owner. He had tried the life of a lumberjack but found he missed the city too much.
Now here they were, two guys trying to be normal on their monthly fishing trip. "Alright! Time to catch us some yummy fish!" Kotetsu yelled at the ocean, laughing as he stepped away from the helm. "Geez, why are you so loud? It's just the two of us out here!" Antonio said gruffly while he dropped the anchor off the side of the boat. The tanned captain didn't seem to care much for the comment as he pulled out two chairs from the cabin below. "Of course, you're going to do all the cooking. As compensation, I'll do the dishes." He stated in a way Antonio knew meant he was going to end up doing the dishes too. With a sigh, he did the only thing he could do with his hopeless friend; he laughed and took the cooler of beers to the chair to set-up for their day out on the sea.
"Here's to a big catch!" Antonio's deep voice barked out. He handed Kotetsu large can of beer and gave a cheer to the sky as if asking whatever force drove his luck to bring him a good catch. Kotetsu lounged back in his chair after setting up the fishing poles and casting into the sea. "Man, it feels like years since my last day off. I forgot how good it felt just to sit in the sun and relax." He mused taking a good long swig of his beer. "Am I right?" He asked with eyes closed to shield them from the sun. He was used to the quick reponse of his best friend and prompted, "Tonio?"
With no response, he looked over at the large man sitting beside him and noted his gaze was locked somewhere out in the distance. He groaned, his stomach sinking slightly. "Damnit… You see something don't you? Damnit! This is gonna be like last time all over again!" He muttered, sinking further into his chair and chugging part of the beer. Snapping out of whatever trance he was in, Antonio's eyes squinted but he didn't look away from the horizon. "What? No! No… It's not a storm. It's... It's a box? Look, right over there. It's kinda just floating around. Not a problem, right?" He asked while pointing Kotetsu's line of sight where his had been.
The short NEXT sighed, taking out his binoculars and focusing on the object in question. "Problem. Off duty or not, I'm still an SCCG officer. I'm going to have to report it." He growled, noting the containers unique brand as it bobbed up and down in the dark blue waters. "A lot of companies lose stock 'cause the shipping companies don't exactly know how to keep their shipments on board. We had a call yesterday and I guess this is the first box to show up." Kotetsu explained, standing up and tossing the binoculars onto his chair.
As he made his way to the anchor, Antonio asked "So we have to check it out?" Frowning, the Japanese man nodded. "It was way more fun when I didn't have to work out on the ocean all the time. It's alright, we'll just secure the box and some of the guys will come pick it up and come right back here to fish!" He assured his friend. No way in hell some incompetent shipping crew was going to ruin his day off with his best friend! With the anchor back onboard the boat started up in the direction of the box as he made the call.
The Tomoe was an old Coast Guard board; he'd bought it at one of those police auctions seven years ago. Turns out that people don't really want to buy a boat that had been used for slave trafficking or where six people were murdered on, but being a bargain hunter Kotetsu couldn't say no to the $5,000 price. All the money he didn't spend on buying the murdership, a nickname given by Antonio, he used to restore the boat and make it look good as new. He'd renamed it after his late-wire and it hadn't been anything but great to him.
"This is the Crusher of Justice on the Tomoe, spotted a box off the South Coast from that shipment yesterday. Tell the boys to keep their eyes peeled. I'll try to keep this box secure and until you guys get off your butts and come to me, over." Kotetsu said into the receiver. The radio garbled back with a response and he was off. It was a few minutes before the boat came close enough to determine it wasn't the large containers Kotetsu had been told about. At about 4 feet wide and six feet long, it must have been inside one of the containers and gotten out.
"Let's bring it on board." Kotetsu said as the engines were cut. He moved to lower the anchor as his Latino friend leaned over the side of the boat to keep the mystery container from floating any further. Hurrying over, Kotetsu jumped into the cold water. As if they'd done this before, Antonio threw out a rope to his friend and watched him dive and swim under the box a few times to secure it. Once satisfied with the job he had done, Kotetsu came up to the side of the boat and outstretched his hand to Antonio to be lifted out of the water. A section of the boat had a gate for just this sort of thing and together the two men worked to bring the box on board. It took a few minutes of coordination between them, but they were able to haul the box over the side of the boat and dump it on the deck.
"Damn! Couldn't have used your hundred power or something?!" The Hispanic man asked, slightly out of breath and clearly annoyed. His hazel-green glare was met with an exapserated golden-amber stare. "You are such a baby." Kotetsu replied in a deadpan. Antonio made to protest, but Kotetsu cut him off as per their usual routine. "Come on. Let's open this thing up." He added, ending their staring contest. Still annoyed but with a sudden interest, Antonio observed the box and saw it was nailed shut. "We don't have a crowbar." He stated, giving Kotetsu a knowing look. It only made the bearded man grumble and roll his eyes. He wasn't a big fan of using his powers. After that one time as a boy and had shattered almost every bone in his brother's right leg he prefered to use his powers only if there was no other option.
"Fine, fine… I'll use them." He clicked his tongue, clenching both of his fist. He took a few deep breaths before his body began to glow blue, the water on his skin from his little dive shimmering. His golden-amber eyes were now a light blue. "Move." He told Antonio, pointing to where he wanted his friend to stand. He gripped the wood lid of the box with one hand and held the side of the box with the other. It was almost child's play for him, the piece of wood coming off as if he was lifting a sheet of paper. He regretted taking the list off almost immediately. "Oh god! Whew! That is… Whoa!" Holding his nose, the brunette looked away. "Geez, it's like a dead body or something!" He exclaimed.
Antonio stood where he was, eyes wide and looking much more terrified than a man of his stature should be. "Uh… K-Kotetsu? It… I think it is!" He stuttered. A large finger was pointing at the box, catching Kotetsu's attention. "Oh shit…" Kotetsu muttered. He made his way closer to the side of the container as if the smell was no longer a problem. Inside the wooden crate was a metal coffin with chains around it mostly covered by hay. It's lid looked like it was riveted inplace. There was a slit in the coffin lid with pieces of bloodied glass clinging on right around where the face of a dead person would be. "That explains the smell…" Kotetsu said, his neck hairs standing on edge at the discovering.
Antonio was keeping his distance mostly due to the smell which now seemed to be a mix of shit and piss rather than decomposing flesh. "W-... What's that?" He asked cautiously, nodding towards a cylindrical object sticking out from the hay beside the coffin. Kotetsu came closer to the box, crouching down to get a better look. Tilting his head, Kotetsu's brow furrowed. The coffin had an air tank attached to it. "Tonio… Check it out. There's an oxygen tank hooked up to this thing. Why would a body need oxygen?" He pondered outloud. "Maybe it's like a mummy they were trying to preserve or something." The burly man answered back, still not coming closer.
Giving Antonio an odd look, Kotetsu turned back to the tank, noting the needle was hovering over empty. "I don't think so. It's a pretty big tank. The shipping containers were supposed to have home goods in them, not artifacts." Sucking his teeth, Kotetsu moved the hay out of the way. "What, you're not going to open it up are you!?" Antonio cried out, taking a step back. "I don't have a choice at this point. They're gonna make my file a report on this anyway." Kotetsu answered.
He found the lock keeping the chain in place and made quick work of it, squishing it like putty until it popped off. The lid was going to be a harder task, but not altogether impossible. He pulled off a few rivets and bent the edges a bit to give himself a better grip. "The hell were they so afraid off to put this much security on a coffin?" He grunted as he pulled the lid off. It flew over the side of the boat, snapping off where the other rivets were still holding on. The smell was definitely more pungent now, so much so that Antonio was hiding in his shirt and leaning overboard a bit. "Oh god, I think I'm gonna be sick." Kotetsu managed out, holding his nose.
Still, the tanned man went back to the box to see what exactly was inside. To his surprise it wasn't a decomposing corpse. It looked like a human, a man to be specific in his mid-twenties. He could barely make out the color of his hair due to the amount of filth he was covered in, clearly the source of the smell had been bodily fluids. "Hey… Antonio, I don't think he's dead." Kotetsu said, noting what he thought was shallow breathing. He rushed to the man's side and tried to take a pulse. "Holy crap, holy crap! He's alive! Barely, but he's alive!" He exclaimed. Urgently, he moved to lift the young man out of the coffin, calling on Antonio to radio the coast guard. The man's eyes short open, brilliant green staring up at the sky in a daze for a few moments before darting to Kotetsu. "Anto-!" Before he could finish saying his friends name, the man began to glow blue just as Kotetsu was and lunged towards him out of his confines. His fist connected with Kotetsu's left eye.
Luckily, Kotetsu still had about a minute left before his power ran out so he wasn't to hurt by the punch. But with just a minute left Kotetsu had to think fast in order to neutralize the seething, obviously crazy, and naked man before him. The seemingly blond man had clearly gone into a fit of rage, throwing uncoordinated punches and kicks at Kotetsu. He himself wasn't a very coordinated fighter, known for just going into a fight blindly, but he knew enough to disarm and disable a perp. With a few seconds to spare, Kotetsu managed to turn the enraged NEXT around and hit him square on the back of the neck. With a soft groan, the man collapsed and hit the deck with a loud thud.
Recovering from his momentary shock, Antonio moved quickly to Kotetsu's side. "You okay?" He asked, watching as the blue glow receded from his friends eyes to return to the usual golden amber. Panting, Kotetsu stared at the unknown man on the deck of his boat. "Why couldn't I have just been normal? Was that a lot to ask for? Did my life really have to have excitement like this? God, I'm getting old…" Kotetsu muttered out of breath, brushing past Antonio and the unconscious man.
As if nothing had just happened, Kotetsu brought the anchor back aboard, started up the boat and picked up the receiver. "Crusher of Justice here. Cancel the recon to me and send an ambulance to the Bay. There was a body in the crate we found, over." Kotetsu said as he steered the boat back to the docks. "Dead body, over?" The radio garbled. "Nope. No. Alive. A NEXT too. Almost beat the crap out of me. I knocked him out, but I'll go with him to the hospital. You boys can look over my boat and the coffin he was in, over."
There was a few moments a silence before the static transmission came through. "Coffin?"
"Coffin."