The Last Titan

Mari sat outside the coffee shop and sipped her espresso. She generally sat alone, contented with experiencing the city…the traffic and people, birds and breezes. It was an occasional luxury she’d clung to for as long as she could remember, a temporary peace that comforted her soul. Still, she sensed them coming…another batch of evil fiends sent to destroy her. A living Guardian, she was all that stood between the darkness and the light.

Maybe it was because she was fated with the name Mariposa, or Butterfly, they’d underestimated her, thinking larger numbers would make any difference at all. Her victories in the deserts and jungles, in great cities, and over vast oceans didn’t deter her or them. They never gave up and she never gave in.

The last in a line of titans now relegated to legend, she calmly set her cup down and removed her sunglasses, draping her sweater over the back of the chair and limbering up her slender muscles. The energy she drew was harnessed from her location and in this place, San Francisco, the earth was hers to command.

Instantly, they lunged at her from the shadows and time slowed. There were hundreds but it didn’t matter. They could never quell her fury, never suppress her power to crack the earth and shake whole foundations. In the back of her mind, she regretted the destruction, the havoc, but she had no choice, for who else would defend the light from the darkness if she were gone. Who else, until another Guardian appeared? In the end, she stood alone atop a ruined battlefield, the city quaked by conflict. With a sigh, she considered, what would it be next time? Tornados in Kansas? Cyclone in Asia? Tremendous magma explosion in Hawaii? Would it ever end?