Author's Note: So picture this—Christmas break of 2019. My brother and I are browsing Netflix for things to watch on a lazy evening and we stumble upon the Netflix original (although it's based off of a 2011 manga) anime series Ultraman. Now this gave us a bit of nostalgia since we watched the old school, live-action Ultraman show as kids. We decided to give it a watch, more to humor ourselves: "Ha ha, remember Ultraman from when we were younger? Let's just watch one episode of this for the laughs." And we did.

We expected it to be bad and laugh at how bad it was compared to what we remembered from our childhoods. To be fair, we did have a good chuckle at the silly parts (what show, especially anime, doesn't have them?). But as we were watching the first two episodes, I couldn't help but think to myself, "... well I kinda like this." It got to the point where I later binge-watched the entire season on my own in two nights. And now I have to wait a couple of months for the next season to come out, so fuck.

So yeah, that's the story of how I got really into the 2019 Ultraman without meaning to. And if you don't know already—when I really like something, I tend to write about it.

Just as a caveat: I haven't read the manga and I don't know what's in store for season two until it comes out. When I write, I try to remain true to canon, but I also put a lot of original content in. So this is an original plot line that deviates from the show's main plot because 1) that's a story already being told by other writers, and 2) my knowledge of lore/characters is limited to season one, so gaps have to be filled by either a wiki or my head canon. So this is probably gonna be AU.

If you've managed to read through all this pre-story yada yada, thanks for listening. As usual, feedback is always welcomed and appreciated. Now, without further ado...

2002—Star Cluster Council Headquarters

It was the second day of being "on-call" for the Council and he was getting bored—real bored. Maybe the Council wanted him to believe that there were no assignments for the time being, but he knew better. There was always something that needed to be done. Maintaining universal peace wasn't easy, and seldom was it clean. Yeah, there was always the need for an agent—a pair of hands to dirty in order to keep another clean.

No, the real reason he was being kept on a standstill was a drab one—truth was, the Council was affording him a little holiday. How generous of them. Now if only it wasn't so boring.

Still, it wasn't going to be time spent completely disconnected. He was too restless to do that. Hell, there was a pile of sand in the corner of the room that had leaked from the torn ruins of the punching bag to testify to his impatience.

Suddenly, there was a knock—a blessed sound. At his beckoning, the visitor opened the door and entered. Well now, who better to stop by than Anchor. The fellow agent was practically a brother to him. In fact, Anchor was one of the very few who knew him before the genetic modifications.

Anchor's brilliant blue eyes flickered from him to the holographic screen he had been watching—headlines relaying intergalactic news and their corresponding footage displayed.

He turned away from Anchor and back to the screen. "Well isn't this a surprise? Hope you didn't come here to gawk—come on in, make yourself at home."

As he stepped into the room, Anchor let out a sigh as a ridged, taloned hand came up to run along the thick, cord-like appendages sprouting from the back of his head. "Really, Adad, you're the only person I know who treats a day off like a curse rather than a blessing," he said. His hand came up to gesture towards the holographic screen. "Give it a rest—the universe can survive a few days without your almighty protection. Take this time to decompress."

"And how can I do that when all this time it just feels like I'm holding my breath? It's maddening, I tell you." Adad rose, crossed his arms, and faced his friend. "Oh, don't tell me—the Council didn't tether you down too, did they?"

"No."

"Well." His arms dropped, and he slowly began pacing in front of the holographic screen. With a hand, he made a wide, semi-circle gesture around him. "No reason for you to stay in the madhouse, then. Did you come all the way here just to visit little old me?" He lifted a hand and made a show of draping it over his chest. "I'm touched."

"Sometimes your theatrics really get on my nerves." The cord-like appendages, tied together by a band, swayed lazily behind Anchor's head as the Piritos alien stepped up to the couch and leaned on its back with both arms. "I'm here to be your saving herald, and just in time it seems." Anchor suddenly pushed off from the couch and squared his shoulders. "Gear up, old friend. The Council's calling you in for an assignment."

"Well isn't that just music to my ears?" Adad marveled, throwing his arms out in his usual, grandiose fashion. With a snap of his fingers, the holographic screen vanished. He hurried to a nearby table to swipe up his sheathed dagger. Just as he turned to where his staff leaned on the wall next to the door, he was stopped by Anchor holding up a hand.

"Before we go," the Piritos said, "I feel like I should put in a word of warning—you've got a partner for this one."

Adad answered Anchor with a light scoff, continuing towards his staff. "That needs a warning? What, did they pair me with Giro again?"

"It's a new agent," Anchor continued, his luminous, azure eyes watching Adad carefully. "Only recently recruited by the Council."

"Mmm, a rookie," Adad mused, picking up his staff. He gave it a casual twirl in his hand before attaching it and its halter to his waist. "So the Council's having me babysit? Well, hopefully this rookie will have the good sense to stay out of my way. Come on—let's get out of here."

Anchor gave what sounded like a defeated sigh as Adad brushed past him. "One more thing. This partner… It's…" he said quietly, "it's a Celuxa."

The door stopped mid-swing. "A what?"

2020—Earth

Scarcely could moonlight reach the inside of the run-down building—what used to be a shop until the owners moved away and the landlord gave up on it. From then on, it served as a rotting den to rats and roaches. Tonight, however, it housed something far more sinister.

The stench of decaying meat and fetid blood plagued the darkness. Soft hisses and clicks sounded in between sickening squelches. A dark mass on the trash-covered floor twitched unnaturally.

Outside, a figure clad in his telltale red and silver armor pressed his back against the wall. His head was turned towards the open doorway, listening closely. From within his helmet, a voice spoke through his earpiece.

"Shinjiro," it said. "Is the target confirmed?"

"Yeah. I can hear it inside. Sounds… gross."

"We've had very limited exposure to this kind of alien," Mitsuhiro Ide explained. "It's called an Ayatsnin. They've not only been banned from Earth, but several other sectors as well—or so I've heard, which means these things are extremely dangerous. Proceed with caution."

"Any intel on what exactly I'm about to face?"

"Not much. They're viscous carnivores, and it seems they've got an appetite for humans. Apparently they're known for consuming their prey from the inside out."

"Oh…" Shinjiro blinked. "Shit."

"Now you see why we can't let this thing run free on Earth. This threat needs to be exterminated as soon as possible," Ide continued. "Moroboshi is still recovering from his last mission. Otherwise, I would've—."

"No, no, I got this!" Shinjiro interrupted. Honestly—that Ide still thought he needed Moroboshi with him on every mission was downright insulting. After all, he was the Ultraman for crying out loud! And when it came to facing violent, human-eating aliens—well, this wasn't his first rodeo.

Shinjiro edged closer to the door. Oddly, the noises within had stopped. He counted his heartbeats as he listened—one… two… three… four.

No, there was no point in standing around. He had promised himself that he would never hesitate, and he wasn't planning on breaking that vow now. Shinjiro pushed himself off of the wall and into the doorway. Immediately, the visor of his helmet switched to night vision, turning the interior of the building into an eerie mosaic of green and black. The moon threw his dim shadow across the floor. Like him, it hesitated, before lifting a foot. As his first step came softly down onto the plaster-littered floor, Shinjiro suddenly paused. He could've sworn he heard a click.

But there was nothing but more silence. The floor was covered in dark streaks and splatters. There was a body lying close to the center of the space. With the state it was in, Shinjiro was glad his helmet kept the smell out.

The young man tore his gaze from the corpse, looking around for any sign of the alien contact. He saw the occasional black speck of a scuttling cockroach before it vanished under debris.

"See anything?"

"Just a dead guy, a bunch of trash, and a whole lot of gore," Shinjiro replied, his gaze still sweeping slowly over the decrepit interior. "You sure it's still here?"

"Positive. We're reading two major life forms in that building right now."

"Well I'm seeing nothing right n—wait." Movement had caught his attention. Shinjiro turned his head, and took a step back when he realized what he was seeing.

Holy shit.

It rose unnaturally, lifting off from the ground as though connected to a puppeteer. Limbs swung listlessly, supported by a midsection that moved in a horrid, grotesque mockery of life. When it was finally upright, the corpse that had been lying in the center of the room faced Shinjiro, though its decayed face tilted downwards.

'Okay,' Shinjiro thought. 'Okay, what the fuck? I thought I was facing an alien, not a zombie. Didn't Ide say something about… something about the thing eating from the inside out? … Oh my GOD.'

The realization hit him just as the corpse suddenly threw its head back and confirmed his worst fears. From the mouth erupted long, spider-like limbs, thrashing and flinging droplets of blood from their pointed ends.

"Fuck. THAT!" Shinjiro couldn't help but shout out as he held his hands out, palms facing one another. The whirring, circular blade of the Specium Slice manifested between them. With a quick wind, Shinjiro threw the Slice like a Frisbee. It shot straight towards the twitching corpse's neck.

But before it could make contact, the rotten body suddenly buckled, collapsing to the ground like a discarded coat. Shinjiro caught something long and spiny quickly scurrying away. Then, it was abruptly swallowed by the darkness. Even then, he could still hear a furious hissing and the gurgling clicks of the Ayatsnin.

'I've gotta kill this thing,' Shinjiro thought, activating the Specium blades that ran along his forearms. 'No way I'm letting it do something like that to anyone else!' Something told him he'd be seeing those spider limbs thrashing in his nightmares for weeks to come.

Shinjiro paused. When another rattling hiss came from the darkness, he realized that the alien was on the ceiling. Just as he looked up, he saw the large, centipede-like Ayatsnin above him. It suddenly lunged.

"Whoa!"

He swung, slicing at the thing with the Specium blade on his right arm. But it moved with a speed Shinjiro hadn't been expecting. The Ayatsnin struck him in the chest like a car, knocking him flat on his back. A heavy cough escaped his lips as the air was forced out of his lungs.

Above him, the Ayatsnin reared up, shrieking a horrendous screech. Several of its front legs had been reduced to stumps by the Specium blade. Its bulbous eyes flitted down as Shinjiro raised his arm for another strike. Just like that, it was gone—its skittering steps could be heard as it retreated back into the darkness. Shinjiro took the brief lull to push himself back onto his feet.

Then, for a second, he saw it there in the corner—standing upright on its spindly back legs. It was watching him, but once it knew that Shinjiro had noticed it, the Ayatsnin flattened itself against the ground and scurried away.

"Focus, Shinjiro!"

"I'm trying, Mr. Ide! This thing's really fast!" Shinjiro stepped back, eyes darting around the decrepit room. Another shrill scream preluded something ramming into Shinjiro's side. The boy gave a choked cry as he was rammed to the debris-covered floor. He felt the thing writhing against him as attempted to tunnel its way into his torso, but it couldn't get past the suit. Blindly, he swiped an arm and was rewarded when he felt it collide against the Ayatsnin. A small line of blood splattered onto the floor. Unfortunately, the Specium blade hadn't cut deep enough to kill it. Shinjiro felt the alien scuttle off of him. Quickly, he flipped himself back onto his feet and held his arms out in a combat-ready stance.

"Try to find a pattern in its attacks and exploit it!" Ide coached through the earpiece. Shinjiro's breaths came out deep and forceful through his mouth as he watched the darkness and waited. He heard the hiss and pressed his lips together. With his breath held, he tensed his body and swung his arm just as the piercing shriek broke the stillness once more.

He saw the dark body fly through the air towards him. It was headed in a straight trajectory towards where his Specium blade was slicing. Just another heartbeat and it would—.

Suddenly, it was as though Shinjiro was trapped in a frozen moment. His arm was held out, braced for the impact. But the Ayatsnin, it was… unmoving. Held in midair.

A second ticked by. Then another. It was enough for Shinjiro to realize something wasn't right. That thing—it should've been cut in half by his Specium blade by now. But… but how on Earth was it just hovering there? Confused, Shinjiro lowered his arm.

He realized the Ayatsnin was still moving—just barely. The tips of its spidery limbs twitched, and it gave strangled gurgles. But even with those minute movements, it was stuck in midair like a mosquito in amber. And then, Shinjiro realized that the two of them weren't alone.

He thought at first that it was Moroboshi, given the glowing eyes. But that theory was quickly disproved when he realized that this newcomer wasn't wearing Ultra suit armor—rather, a black cloak that ended mid-waist. And given the skirt, this stranger was a woman. Shinjiro couldn't see her face aside from the illuminated eyes within that hood.

But what was most striking was her hand—it was extended towards the Ayatsnin, palm out and fingers relaxed. Shinjiro's eyes moved from it to the paralyzed alien.

Then, the stranger's hand rotated as though she were reaching out for a handshake. Her fingers suddenly clenched just as a horrible ripping noise erupted from the Ayatsnin. Something long emerged from its back amidst a splatter of bright orange blood and flew into the stranger's flexed hand. Whatever grip held the Ayatsnin in midair suddenly broke. The dead alien collapsed heavily onto the floor. Shinjiro's eyes widened as he realized that the thing the stranger held was some kind of long, tubular organ that had been torn out of the Ayatsnin. She gave it a disdainful look before dropping it.

"What… what did you do?"

"I gave this monster what was coming to it," the woman replied. Her voice, even with its harsh tone, was melodic and pleasant. "There are a number of governments that wanted it dead. Earth isn't the only planet on which this Ayatsnin gorged itself on innocent people." Her hooded head tilted down as she gave the organ a nudge with the toe of her heel. "I have to say, after the chase this thing led me on, putting it down like that was rather satisfying."

Shinjiro's brow furrowed. A boyish arrogance suddenly overtook him. "I had it. You didn't need to interfere."

"You know what that tells me? It tells me you really had no idea what you were dealing with," the stranger replied. "What you were about to do—that's how you end up with two of them. And it looked like you were having trouble enough with just one."

"Two? You mean…?"

"Exactly. Cut off one head, and two grow in its place. As if these things weren't pleasant enough. Good riddance." With that, the stranger turned with the clear intent to leave.

"Wait!" Shinjiro interjected quickly. The woman paused. "You… your eyes. They were glowing a second ago—when you were holding that thing in the air."

"And?"

"How—?"

"What's your name?" the stranger interrupted.

"Huh?"

It was then that she turned back to him, lifting a hand to lower her hood. Dark magenta locks spilled down her shoulders. She looked human at first, but then Shinjiro registered the foreign physical features that told him otherwise—pure white, iris-less eyes, only a ridge where her nose should have been, and an inhuman, light gray complexion.

Then there was that thin, black choker around her neck, adorned with a peculiar star-shaped charm. For some reason, Shinjiro felt his eyes drawn to it. But then the stranger spoke up again, recapturing his attention.

"Your name?" she repeated.

"I'm…" Shinjiro's voice suddenly strengthened with a revived confidence. "I'm Ultraman."

He was answered with a light, tinkling laugh. "Alright. I'll play along with your little game."

"And you?"

The stranger paused, and it seemed to Shinjiro as though she were deliberating on whether to answer him. "Ilia," she finally said. "Although, if I'm to properly introduce myself, I suppose it would be Agent Ilia of the Star Cluster Council."

"Of the…? Not again."

"Again?" This time the stranger turned completely to him. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh." A part of him wondered if he had said too much. Then again, there was no harm in divulging—it wasn't like he was handing out SSSP secrets. "A while back, I had a run in with someone else claiming to be an agent for the Star Cluster Council."

"Not surprising," the woman replied. "Our work takes us far and wide, and Earth seems to attract trouble like flies…" She gestured towards the human corpse that the Ayatsnin had hidden in earlier that night. "… To rotted meat. Well, Ultraman, I'd love to stick around in this nest of vermin and gore to chat, but my work here is done. I doubt we'll see the likes of each other again, so take care." She turned, and as she did, she threw her arms out as though pushing aside curtains. Before her, the air suddenly moved in a way Shinjiro had never seen before—opening as a swirling vortex. The stranger walked into it without hesitation, and just like that, she vanished and the air was still once again.

The silence she left in her wake was quickly interrupted by Ide's voice crackling in through the earpiece. "—jiro? Can you hear me? Your signal was disrupted."

"Huh? Oh. Yeah—yessir, I can hear you."

"What happened? Has the target been neutralized?"

Shinjiro looked down at the dead Ayatsnin as it lay in a rapidly growing pool of orange. His eyes moved across the floor to the tubular organ that curled across the dirty floor. "Yeah."

"Excellent. I'll send a team to secure it then. Good job on taking it down, Shinjiro."

"Er, about that…"

Through the earpiece, he heard Ide sigh. "Well, that doesn't sound good. Head on back—you can tell me during your debrief."

"Yessir."

For some reason, the wait made Shinjiro even more nervous about telling Ide the news. Then again, he reminded himself, nothing that happened was his fault. It wasn't like the appearance of that strange agent had been under his control. And on top of that, Shinjiro was curious about what Edo would have to say on the Star Cluster Council's unexpected appearance.

But, of course, it wasn't just Ide and Edo there. Moroboshi had apparently recovered enough to stand on his own. They were waiting for him in one of the large conference rooms. The sliding doors opened and Shinjiro stepped through. The conference room's large screen still showed the live feed from one of the CCTV street cameras outside the abandoned building.

"So what's this all about then?" Moroboshi demanded, quickly cutting to the chase. "Don't tell me you got cold feet again—not with a target as dangerous and unforgivable as an Ayatsnin."

"Ease off, Moroboshi," Ide said. "I've confirmed with the team that secured the area—the target is dead."

"But I didn't do it," Shinjiro quickly interjected. His brief moment of brazenness faltered when all eyes turned to him. "I-I mean, I was about to, and then… someone else just appeared."

"How could that be?" Ide asked. "We were watching through all available street cameras. No one outside of SSSP was in that area during the entire course of the mission."

"I don't know either," Shinjiro said with a hapless shrug. "But she…" He suddenly recalled the way she had vanished. "When she left, she just… walked into the air and disappeared. I bet that's how she showed up too."

"We didn't catch any teleportation signals," Ide said, throwing an inquisitive look towards Edo. The Zettonian gave a slow shake of his head to confirm.

"That's the thing—it didn't look like teleportation." Shinjiro realized he should've stopped talking a long time ago. Even to him, the words sounded ridiculous as they escaped his lips.

"How else does someone appear and disappear without a trace if not through teleportation?" Moroboshi challenged, crossing his arms.

Shinjiro recalled how the stranger had used her hands and pushed the air as though it were water. Her doing so had opened some sort of… "Portal. It liked like a portal."

"A what?" Moroboshi growled, his face darkening into a scowl.

"A portal… you know… like the ones…" Shinjiro said uneasily, watching as each word made Moroboshi's scowl deepen. "… in the… movies…"

"This is ridiculous." Moroboshi turned to Ide. "It's clear seeing the Ayatsnin messed with his head. Get him to the medical bay—this boy clearly needs to lie down."

"Fascinating." Both Ide and Moroboshi looked to the Zettonian as he uttered his first word since the start of the debriefing. Edo laced his fingers together and leaned forward onto his crossed legs. "Shinjiro, did she say why she was there? Whom she was working for?"

"Yeah, actually. The Star Cluster Council."

"Another agent?" Ide said incredulously. "As if that other one—Adad—hadn't caused enough trouble. But… Edo, why does it sound like you already knew who this person was?"

Edo leaned back in the plush leather seat, resting his hands atop his lap. "Truly fascinating," he marveled in his deep, fluctuating voice. "I did not think the universe would ever see them again."

"Edo, what are you talking about?"

"Ah. Sometimes I forget," Edo admitted, "how young humankind really is. Far too young to remember the time of the Celuxi."

A communicator lit up as it received a brief, encrypted message: Found her. Earth.