Cryptotrappers!

Cryptotrappers- Kappa Catastrophe

At the riverside, I undressed to my wetsuit and prepared to dive in search of the creature. Before I could plunge, Sid held his hand out in front of me and gestured to the other side.
"There it is."
Looking across the river, my eyes locked with the creature, near the boat, and my muscles threatened to seize again.
"Now the thing to remember about Kappas," Sid advised, in a low voice, "is that they have a critical weakness that will leave them powerless."
"What is it?"
"I don't remember." Sid admitted, as I felt my chances sink even deeper.
"Seriously?"
"Randy would know... Damn it, why the hell did he have to be injured today of all days!"
The Kappa's attention shifted from me, and it dove into the river and began to swim downstream. As hysteria broke out around the river, I dived in too in pursuit, swimming as quickly as a terrified pubescent wreck can flail himself down a river. From his side, Sid followed my journey down the river, firing his tranquilliser gun errantly, just trying to land a single shot on the creature. Yet none of the shots landed well enough to pierce, either missing entirely or bouncing off and sinking into the river. I could tell as his temper flared that he was getting low on darts. So it didn't come out of nowhere when he roared in anger and threw the rifle itself towards the Kappa. To both of our dismays, he had miscalculated by a few dozen metres, and the gun smashed on the bank as the broken pieces sank into the water below. It can only be assumed that the foul language that Sid produced following this could likely be heard from the top of the London Eye. It seemed that it has scared the Kappa, however, as it had dived below the river's surface.
"Another underwater battle, then." I sighed to myself. And with that, I too dived beneath the river into the murk.

My vision beneath the water was so dire that that I could barely see the Kappa's dim outline. It flashed past me, back towards the boat, faster than I could have possibly imagined it to move. Then it kicked off from the boat and flew towards me at frightening speed. I tried to dodge, but its sharp nails made a long slit down my arm, dyeing the murk with dark blood. Pain flashed through my arm as I tried to find something beneath the water to defend myself with. I finally found something close enough to be a weapon and grabbed it to fight back. Yes, it may have been the broken barrel of Sid's gun, slowly rolling deeper into the water, but it would be far better than a fistfight. I thrust it forward in the water as if performing a fencing duel in dream speed. The Kappa manoeuvred backwards away from me before hurtling at me quickly again. I thrust the barrel's snout at it, hoping to do something, begging for it to work. It made contact with the water spirit, but my hopes grew dim as I saw the now bent barrel hardly scratching the impenetrable dish on the creature's head. Shoot...

It hurtled once again at me, and I panicked and kicked upwards, breaching the surface and taking a deep breath. I'd lost all coordination down there but now it seemed I was the one close to the boat. Fear rose in me as I felt the wiry but powerful fingers of the creature grasp my ankle, and I prepared to be pulled beneath, just as supple hands grabbed onto my shoulder and Sid hoisted me onto the boat.
"Close call." Sid gruffly smiled as he pulled a small medical kit from his pack. After almost enough bandage to wrap a mummy, Sid figured that I would be ready to fight again.
"Feeling secure?" Sid asked.
"I can't move my arm for bandage..." I answered, spying the Kappa on the shore of the river, seemingly on the hunt again. "But about that crucial weakness. I think I have an idea what it may be."
Throwing a rock at the Kappa caught its attention, and it turned to the boat with amphibian malice. I'd tried fighting the Kappa in its own domain. Now, it had to come to mine.

The Kappa burst onto the main deck of the boat through a rupture in the floor. I was armed with a metal bar in the arm I could move, and several small balls of homemade sushi at my waist, made from the chunks left behind from its feeding frenzy. It lunged at me with a twisted, inhuman gait, head still directly parallel with the floor. I sidestepped it's strike and struck it in the stomach. It lowered its head from the impact, just a little, spilling some of the water and draining some of it's seemingly otherwise limitless strength. Just as I'd suspected! The weakness revealed. It dove into the water to refill the bowl as I readied to strike again. This time it clawed at me; I rolled and swiped at it's legs. My hit swung harmlessly below it as it jumped and struck my face with a powerful kick. Blood poured from my nose but this is was what I wanted; it spilt some of the murky water in the process. Sid now leaped in from the sidelines and punched it in the stomach with as much force as he could muster. The pitiful Kappa bowled over, almost powerless now, it's dish near empty. It crawled towards the hole, but I grabbed it by the rim of the bowl and even with my limited strength, held it back.

Together, Sid and I hauled it carefully across the bridge, and eventually, into the backseat of his vehicle. It could barely move, so I sat by it and tried to help it relax throughout the hair-raising return journey. By the time we had returned to the Lab, Eva had a suitable, wetlands enclosure ready from the situation report Sid had made. Before I entered though, Eva had questions.
"I thought you said this was a Kappa?" Eva asked, surprised. My face shone with confusion at this statement.
"This isn't a kappa?" I responded in confusion.
"I mean you know the saying." Sid continued. "If it looks like a duck and walks like a man."
"No, this isn't just a Kappa." Eva replied. "The face is too long, it's limbs are too long. If it was a Kappa, it'd be about three foot shorter. This thing is definitely a Garappa, a rarer cousin of the Kappa, very similar."

Confusion cleared, Eva led me to where it would be contained, a fairly impressive mimicry of where I assumed it would naturally live. Eva had even taken the liberty of a adding a small wrecked wooden boat to the exhibit, very fitting, though I had to wonder if she'd built it herself. I lowered the Garappa gently into the marsh to refill its bowl; Eva and Sid ready in case it turned on me. Instead, it dove as deep into the water as it could, placated.
"You think it will be okay?" I asked, as we left it to its own devices.
"It'll settle in fine." Eva assured me. "You've done an excellent job, by the way."
Another mission down, and a fantastic result. But with that, time to head home to rest again until the next mission. And whatever it was, I felt confident in our success.