Shezilla: The Cloning Project, a godzilla fanfic

Authors note: I've always been a Godzilla fan. People who have seen me angry can attest to similar temper tantrums. Anyway, Godzilla is not my creation and I am not making any money off of this story.

Don't play with nature. It bites back.

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Shezilla: The Cloning Project

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Dr. Kenpachiro Satsuma, a slightly pale thirty-year-old Kaijuologist, peered intently into his microscope. Using special tools, he sliced a thin layer off of a chunk of leathery charcoal-gray flesh.

Very carefully, he placed the tissue sample under the microscope and switched to a higher magnification. There, he viewed the chromosomes, and was finally able to determine the actual sex of the creature called Godzilla. Bringing the chromosomes into focus, Kenpachiro found an X chromosome. Next to it was a Y chromosome. At last, the world would know...

Kenpachiro turned on the television screen beside the microscope so his colleagues could see.

"We can clearly see that Godzilla is male. There has been a controversy over the kaiju's sex, and I now have the answer." Said the Kaijuologist happily.

"So what's the big deal? It's a boy! D'ya need a blue banner and balloons?" Cracked Blake Dunham, a Canadian-American in his late teens with shoulder-length blonde hair and brown eyes.

Emiko Kurosawa, a petite, youthful Kaijuologist in her early twenties with short hair framing her face, jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. "Not a good time to goof around. This is serious!"

Blake shrugged and smiled boyishly, his ponytail swishing against his neck. "Nobody appreciates humor these days. I always thought ol' 'Godzy' was a guy."

Emiko ignored Blake's remark and turned her attention to Kenpachiro. "What will we do now?"

Kenpachiro stood there for a moment, clicking his pen. It had taken him a year to get ahold of the G-cells and now he could finally put into words what he was planning. His eyes lit up as he told them, "I plan on cloning Godzilla, only I'll attempt to create a female clone. I am curious to see what would happen."

"Hey, hey! Wait a just a minute!" Blake held up his hands between the two Kaijuologists, frowning, "Isn't this gonna end up like Biollante?"

"No, because Biollante was created by DNA splicing. In this project, I'm going to pair a set of Godzilla's X-chromosomes with a chemical that will force them to duplicate. If all else fails, we could study the embryonic growth of Godzilla. I shall call her Shezilla."

"That will be interesting." Blake told his colleagues as they prepared to compare notes. "Hey…" he began with a mischievous grin, "why don't you call her 'Goddess-zilla' instead? You know, Godzilla and Goddess-zilla…"

Kenpachiro laughed and shook his head, "Because Shezilla is easier to pronounce and write. Now, let's get to work."

Godzilla stirred beneath the ocean, disturbing a school of fish swimming near his dorsal spikes. The loneliness had been eating away at him for so long now, and not even hibernating could ease that feeling. Each time he slept, he dreamt of the cold flash that changed his world to ice and then the hot light that later changed him.

He needed something else to dream about.

Emitting a soft rumble in his throat, Godzilla lowered his head back onto a large chunk of coral and closed his eyes. Maybe when the water warmed up, he would rise and find a place to feed.

It was nearly three o' clock in the morning. All the lights in wide white ten-story building were off except for a few on the bottom floor. Kenpachiro had not left the lab that night. Instead, he decided to start the Shezilla project a little sooner.

Peering into the microscope, Kenpachiro gently injected a chemical into the G-cell that would dissolve all of the Y-chromosomes, but leave the X-chromosomes intact. Then, using a tiny needle, he suctioned out the organelles and protoplasm left behind from the dissolved Y-chromosomes. He had to be careful with the tiny nucleus and cell membrane - one slip could rupture the cell, which would cause it to regenerate itself, and then the whole process would have to be started over. In order for this to work, he needed to trick the cell into thinking it was a fertilized ovum.

Wiping his forehead with his sleeve, Kenpachiro worked meticulously with the joysticks that operated the microscopic needle. He moved it up to the top of the dish and emptied its contents. Moving the joysticks again, the Kaijuologist dipped the needle into a droplet of liquid, sucked up a single speck of blackness containing a chemical designed to split chromosomes and induce rapid mitosis, and took a deep breath. He shifted the needle back to the cell and pushed the minuscule black particle into the nucleus amidst the jelly-like swirl of chromosomes. Then he relaxed and watched the TV screen.

Nothing happened. The little speck of chemical implanted in the nucleus neither dissolved nor interacted with the chromosomes. Everything just sat there, utterly still.

"Bah…nothing. I'll just have to try again tomorrow," Kenpachiro sighed to himself and rubbed his eyes with his palms. He wrote down his previous activities on a clipboard, turned off the lights and left the lab to get the sleep he desperately needed.

It was about noon on a warm autumn day in the bay area of Osaka. A young woman stood on the beach, the wind gently blowing her black hair around her face. Her eyes were closed and she frowned slightly.

Miki Saegusa, a woman gifted with ESP, sensed Godzilla's loneliness. She could see the creature as he stirred like a restless sleeper within his thoughts. Attacking the land was not among them...no…this new thought was unlike anything she felt before.

Emiko arrived at the lab at about twelve-thirty in the afternoon, discovered Kenpachiro's notes and turned on the TV screen to see for herself. She was expecting what Kenpachiro's notes said - nothing.

A rapidly multiplying morula, a circular mass of thirty or so cells, greeted her vision when the screen flickered on. It looked like a glob of soap bubbles that kept forming instead of popping. She adjusted the focus and squinted into the microscope itself to make sure it wasn't a trick.

By the time Blake arrived, the mass on the screen had become a hollow, spherical blastocyst with a clump of cells stationed at three o' clock.

"Whoa!" Blake twisted the monitor around for a better look at the screen. "Emiko, call Ken quick!"

Kenpachiro jumped out of bed when his phone rang. He fell back against his pillow, sighed heavily and stretched his arm towards the phone.

"Hello?" He mumbled into the receiver.

"Doctor! It's working! You need to come down here!" Emiko's excited voice came from the phone.

"On my way," Kenpachiro mumbled and hung up. He got dressed in a crisp shirt and slacks and put some order into his short, disheveled hair. Peering at his reflection, he sighed again, "I have got to stop it with the long hours…"

When he arrived at the lab, the cells were multiplying rapidly. The blastocyst had attached itself to the bottom of the little dish and the nourishing liquid surrounding it had nearly been consumed. Kenpachiro had to add more just to keep up with the tiny life trying to form.

Within two weeks, a definite embryo was present. There was an identifiable head with large bulbous black orbs for eyes, a teardrop-shaped torso and delicate tail. It had tiny stubs that would form arms and legs. The heart could be seen beating beneath the embryo's transparent flesh. Its yolk sac drifted nearby like a distorted star being fed off of by a black hole.

"It's amazing." Emiko commented after examining Kenpachiro's notes and studying the twitching embryo via the microscope. "It won't be long until it's too large for the liquid in the dish."

Four months after the Shezilla project began, the tiny monster was still alive and showing signs of life. Kenpachiro had the developing creature placed in a special tank with the proper nourishment constantly flowing. Now, it was an identifiable monster. Exactly twelve inches long, it had prominent eyelids, ears, a mouth and claws.

Emiko and Kenpachiro agreed to accelerate the growth of Shezilla by exposing her to the same radiation that created Godzilla. Every day, they stuck their hands into thick gloves resistant to radiation and dropped radioactive pellets into the tank.

Within just three days, the outer skin thickened and dorsal plate buds had started to form.

"Ain't she a beauty?" Blake commented as he observed the developing Shezilla in the tank. The miniature monster twitched like a startled dreamer at the sound of his voice.

"Hai." Emiko answered, taking readings and adding to her notes. She ran a hand through her layered hair and gazed at the tank. "Hard to believe she'll be Godzilla's size by the time she's through growing. She's almost cute right now…"

"I still think Kenny-boy is crazy for starting this project - "

"Blake, don't start with the pessimistic attitude again." Emiko glared at the blonde man.

Miki awoke with a start in the middle of the night. She curled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, sighing. The image of a developing Godzilla embryo had been haunting her for several nights now. She could also sense Godzilla's mind coming rapidly to full alert.

Something was going to happen. It would be very soon.

Godzilla awoke fully and began to move. In moments, the King of the Monsters had reached the surface of the ocean. Water parted in his wake as he passed.

A nuclear-dumping vessel drifted on the waves like a toy in a child's bathtub. Godzilla sensed radioactive energy and released his atomic flame upon the boat, giving the night sky an eerie blue glow. The boat sank before any calls could be made.

Roaring victoriously, Godzilla followed the ship down for a midnight nuclear snack.

Ten months had transpired since the Shezilla project began. Kenpachiro's little creation wasn't so little anymore. It delighted the Kaijuologist each time he entered the underground tank to see the growing monster curled up on her side like a sleeping cat. Tubes the same diameter as telephone poles lined either side of her neck to feed gallons of nourishment and oxygen through her massive body. For safety reasons, she was also being pumped with powerful sleeping agents to keep her from damaging herself and the tank.

"Shezilla's almost full-grown. She's three hundred and twenty feet tall and weighs roughly fifty-eight thousand tons. We can release her any time." Kenpachiro told Emiko and Blake happily.

"He's happy about letting lose another monster that can blow up the city…I love it." Blake grinned wryly. "But if Godzilla wants to be her boyfriend or whatever, maybe they'll both leave us alone."

Kenpachiro faced Blake and nodded, "My thoughts exactly."

"…or," Blake added under his breath, "We'll have two of 'em to deal with in the city…and maybe more even later. Great. Why do I always think about these things?"

The bright sun rose over Japan. Rising out of the water with it was Godzilla, who was heading for land at high speed. Tokyo awoke to the sound of his roar and the quakes of his footsteps.

No one was prepared when the three hundred and twenty-eight foot tall behemoth made landfall.

Frightened civilians grabbed what they could and made a run from the city on foot, by train or by car. Highways and side-streets became jammed by vehicles of all different shapes, colors and sizes. Belated emergency evacuations were issued. Terror ran rampant in the streets, which were littered with dropped belongings. One very feeble old woman was trampled to death when she fell in the midst of a mob.

At the distant sound of Godzilla's cry, Shezilla opened her eyes and began to move uneasily in the tank. The water surrounding her body churned and sloshed. Tubing and wiring broke away from her flesh. A few people working near the area made a run for safety.

A frightened chemist in a dirty lab coat raced up to Kenpachiro, gasping, "Doctor Satsuma! We have to get out of here! Godzilla's coming!"

"Godzilla?"

"Yes! He's already entering the city!" As the frightened man spoke, Godzilla's bell-like roar echoed faintly in the distance. "We have to leave now!"

Kenpachiro faced Shezilla's tank and watched the monster inside thrash. It was obvious she was aware that another like her was nearby.

The reinforced alloy used in the glass to construct the tank seemed to be holding up against her motion, but he didn't want to risk her shattering it.

Suddenly the floor vibrated like a massive bass woofer. Again. And again. The rhythmic tremble of a giant's footsteps.

"Doctor, please! We must get away right now!" The chemist's slanted brown eyes were wild with fear. He raced away down the hall, his tenor voice shouting, "We have to get away! Everyone out! Godzilla is approaching!"

Emiko dodged a terrified worker and tripped to Kenpachiro's side. Her voice betrayed her valiant attempt to look calm and collected when she shakily asked, "W-what about Shezilla?"

"No choice. Open the tank! Let Shezilla free!" Kenpachiro shouted over the mayhem. Emiko darted away to punch a code into a keypad on the wall and then pulled a lever beside the keypad with all her strength. Moments later, a line of light spread open above the tank.

Not fast enough.

Shezilla burst free in a spray of liquid, glass, wire and tubing. The massive mechanical doors above the tank were ripped away by her massive dorsal plates as she clumsily pulled herself to her feet and shook off the broken pieces of her watery environment. Debris rained down over her four-toed feet. Unlucky people still in the underground lab raced for the doors and corridors as the glass and metal smashed onto the equipment.

A tall, thin technician wearing an expensive brown suit was killed when he tripped over a chunk of metal and impaled his chest on a large shard of glass. Another person was crushed by a sheet of metal while bending over to try and help him.

Then, all went quiet for a few moments. There was just the sounds of Shezilla moving, occasional screams of people calling out for each other and sparks from broken equipment. The tank was in shambles and the lab area around it completely turned to scrap. Dust gave the air a hazy film.

Kenpachiro, Emiko and Blake dodged their way into the back quarter of the lab were backup equipment had been set up for an emergency such as this. Blake flipped a switch that opened a large panoramic skylight built into the ceiling and wall at the back of the room.

All stared in awe at the sight.

Standing there as if she had always existed, Shezilla took her first real breath and roared a bell-like cry to announce her presence to the world. The sound was slightly higher-pitched than Godzilla's and carried high-frequency, barely audible overtones. Torrents of the fluid that once surrounded her body ran off of her pitted flesh in rivulets.

Aside from being eight feet shorter, having slightly smaller and rounder dorsal plates, longer claws and a lighter charcoal gray coloring, Shezilla looked identical to her male counterpart.

"Shezilla," Emiko gasped, pointing frantically at the creature looming just a hundred yards away.

"She's perfect!" Kenpachiro exclaimed, spiking his clipboard like a football. "She's…alive. Alive I say!"

"This is crazy," Blake commented, eyes wide as he watched Shezilla blink curiously at the world around her. "Look at her, she's huge! Oh yeah…" he dug in his chest pocket, then his jeans pocket and finally pulled out a cigar. He handed it to Kenpachiro and the three of them laughed.

Kenpachiro reached under the desk and pulled out a camcorder. He handed it to Blake, "Here, you film while Emiko and I analyze."

"Sure thing!"

Godzilla stopped in mid-stomp over a housing complex when he caught wind of a new scent in the air. He cocked his head in cat-like curiosity. His slit-like nostrils flared. Then he heard the high-frequency overtones of a far-off cry. Looking into the distance, he saw a shape similar to his own. Was he dreaming?

Shezilla caught Godzilla's scent as he approached and turned towards the direction from which he was coming. She lashed her tail and snarled, baring double rows of sharp teeth. Godzilla's characteristic howl answered hers from very close by. A high-rise building crumbled to the ground and a tremendous shape emerged in the rising columns of black smoke.

Shezilla blinked, snorted and reared up. Godzilla tossed his head, narrowed his eyes and rumbled in his throat. Then he advanced. Shezilla also moved forward, wary, yet curious. The two monsters maintained eye-contact as the distance between their massive bodies grew smaller.

The Kaijuologists watched the monsters approach one another, each of them glad the part of the city being trashed had been evacuated earlier.

"Doctor!" Emiko was bent over a panel with two round sonar-like screens depicting wavy green lines. "I just found something interesting involving Shezilla's roar." She pointed to the screen when Kenpachiro peeked over her shoulder, "Whenever Shezilla roars, she gives off high frequencies similar to a bird's chirping. We can't hear the higher frequencies, but the monsters can, apparently from long distances."

"Of course!" Kenpachiro grabbed his clipboard and tore through his notes. "That explains why those men were able to lure Godzilla to the volcano in the year nineteen eighty-four. Godzilla thought he was hearing a female's voice. This is utterly fascinating…we've just made a huge discovery!"

Blake opened and closed his hand in a jabber-jabber gesture and turned his attention to the two monsters outside. "Are you two going to goof around over this bird thing all day or are you going to watch Godzilla pick up his hot new date?"

"Both," Emiko replied with a smart-aleck smile.

Blake just shook his head and pulled the rubber band out of his hair, letting it fall around his shoulders. With his other hand he held the camcorder pointed at the two monsters.

He watched Godzilla and Shezilla eye each other warily, circling and sniffing. Their roaring had quieted to occasional growls, snorts and the occasional head-toss. The distance between them was getting smaller and smaller. Soon, they were standing nose to nose, smelling each other curiously.

"It looks good, they seem to be getting along so far." Kenpachiro told his colleagues, "Their interaction is fascinating!"

By then, Godzilla had walked away from Shezilla and moved towards the half-constructed nuclear power plant less than a half-mile away. The Kaijuologists observed as the King of the Monsters reached into the tall cylinder and extracted the nuclear reactor amidst a rush of steam and blue sparks.

"There's four million dollars…" Blake muttered as Godzilla's tail toppled the unfinished framework of the power plant like a pile of metal toothpicks. "And rising…"

Instead of absorbing the radiation, however, Godzilla turned with the reactor, lumbered forward and placed it at Shezilla's feet. Shezilla, instinctively recognizing the source of sustenance, lifted the reactor into her grasp and proceeded to consume the radiation. One by one, her dorsal plates shimmered until they all emitted an electric blue glow.

"Monster love! How cute!" Blake commented from behind the camcorder, running a hand through his hair. He jumped when Emiko smacked him in the back of the head. "OW!"

"Grow up! We can laugh later." She wrinkled her nose at him, "Teenagers…so immature."

Blake made a face and returned his attention to the monsters.

Godzilla couldn't ever recall a time when he was this happy and excited! Finally, after so long, another of his own kind had appeared! There was also another feeling present. A primal, nearly-forgotten urge. The scent of the female was activating primitive parts of his brain and telling him to impress her.

Rearing up, Godzilla roared and dipped his head, igniting his dorsal plates with a brilliant blue glow. His segmented tail swished, stirring dust and debris. He curled his lips, showing his slick six foot long teeth.

"Are you getting all of this on film?" Emiko asked Blake.

"Never stopped." Blake replied, "It's all good, Em."

"Look at that…he's displaying all his assets to her. I don't believe this! I think he's trying to get her to mate with him," Kenpachiro's heart was pounding in excitement. No one had ever seen Godzilla display such behavior before. He slid himself closer to the window and peered out in awe.

Turning a little, Blake grinned at Emiko with mischief in his brown eyes, "Does that mean I have to rate this film as triple X?"

Godzilla straightened and circled Shezilla for a second time, sizing her up and studying her responses. Shezilla watched him carefully, the drained reactor dropping from her hands to the ground with a crash. She didn't show him yet whether she was "interested" or not.

Godzilla stopped right in front of Shezilla and cocked his head. Blue light danced down his back, one irregular spike at a time, like the chasing action of casino lights.

Shezilla, seemingly approving of Godzilla's display, bent forward a little and brushed her head against the side of Godzilla's neck like an affectionate cat asking for attention. Godzilla snarled with open jaws and lurched forward, pushing her back a step with his muscled chest. Shezilla vocalized at him and pushed back.

Then they stood still for a moment afterward, snuffling and growling at each other once again. It almost looked like the kaijus were having a private conversation.

"Well? What're you waitin' for? Go for it!" Blake laughed, as if the monsters could hear him.

Kenpachiro and Emiko just grinned and ignored their excited colleague.

"Teenagers," Emiko muttered.

"I know, I used to be one." Kenpachiro replied.

Shezilla bobbed her head, almost a nod, and moved her tail over to one side as an invitation to Godzilla. She parted her jaws and emitted a soft snort.

Godzilla growled softly back, a low, throaty rumble. He took the invitation and reared up in front of her. In a brazen display of power, he shoved the female onto her back, toppling a large glass tower, and dropped down on top of her, pinning her with his weight. Shezilla bellowed at Godzilla, dug her long claws into his thick hide and grappled with him. Godzilla rubbed the side of his neck all up and down the sides of hers, just as she did to him earlier. The action seemed to calm the female for a few seconds while he planted his feet against the debris.

But before Godzilla was ready, Shezilla lifted her head and bit down on the front of his neck, right where his lower jaw joined his throat. Godzilla snarled, surprised. He had no choice but to continue forward, and to anyone watching it was hard to tell who was in control of the whole situation.

Their angry snarling faded to soft growls as Shezilla released her jaws and Godzilla settled his chin across the top of her head. Both monsters stopped grappling with each other and stared straight ahead, still as statues. Only their tails moved, coiling and entwining like snakes fighting for dominance. Smoke from the building they fell upon half obscured them from view.

Kenpachiro smiled as the monsters mated. The experiment was a success! At first he was afraid Godzilla would reject Shezilla, but he had been proven delightfully wrong in that aspect.

"Blake, how is the recording going?"

"Excellent so far." Blake squinted into the eyepiece, "Let's just hope they don't roll this way with all their hanky-panky."

"Doubtful. Just keep filming, please."

Shezilla was the first to move. She grappled with Godzilla, which also trashed the rest of the building. The pillar of smoke billowed higher and thicker. The two monsters continued to growl and wriggle about after their odd trance passed.

About ten to fifteen minutes after the mating actually began, Shezilla released her grip on Godzilla. She snarled and wriggled away, her tail thrashing about. Godzilla waited for her to calm down before approaching her again. The monsters actually held hands and nuzzled noses in an almost human display of affection before heading out to sea together.

Hours after witnessing and analyzing the mating behavior of the monsters, Kenpachiro got together all of the Kaijuologists he could get ahold of.

"I would first like to thank you all for coming on such short notice," Kenpachiro began.

The lights went out and images of the chromosomes appeared on the large TV monitor in the front of the room. Quiet chatter erupted around the room and notes were being taken.

"As you can see, Godzilla has both X and Y-chromosomes, thus proving that the creature is indeed male." He pushed play, and the cell manipulation appeared on the screen. "I created a clone of Godzilla using only X-chromosomes. The result is a female Godzilla. We here at the lab call her Shezilla." Pictures from different stages of Shezilla's embryonic development flashed in sequence on the screen.

Fascinated oohs and ahs went up and a few people turned to talk with their colleagues.

"Today, Shezilla was born, in a sense. We kept her unconscious until full adulthood was achieved. It happened so quickly because I accelerated her growth process using small amounts of the same radiation that created Godzilla." Kenpachiro continued. "And for the first time in history, we have the entire mating process of two monsters of film."

Blake hurriedly stuck the recently shot tape into the VCR and pushed PLAY. The image of Godzilla and Shezilla circling each other filled the screen. The image froze.

"Basically, the first thing they did was examine each others' scent." Kenpachiro clicked the remote and the image went into motion. He paused it again when Godzilla placed the nuclear reactor at Shezilla's feet. "Here, we can clearly see him presenting her with a gift, so to speak. My guess is that Shezilla could've rejected the offering and ended the process right there, but she did not." The images began to play until Godzilla began to circle Shezilla once again. "At this point, the male observed the female as she consumed his offering. Then Godzilla began a display process and showed off his teeth, tail and dorsal spines. Shezilla lost interest in the offering and approved of Godzilla's assets."

The picture froze again when Shezilla moved her tail aside and invited Godzilla to mate with her. Then he let it move forward until the two monsters crashed down on the building.

"Shezilla clearly approved of Godzilla and her readiness to mate is...well...quite obvious.. Once she bit his throat, she had him. She was in control the whole time, despite her submissive position. The rest of the tape is self-explanatory." Kenpachiro finished and let the audience watch the rest of the mating process. "If anyone has any questions I'm free to answer them."

One petite woman raised her hand and stood when Kenpachiro acknowledged her with a nod, "Have you told the press yet?"

The Kaijuologist just smiled cryptically at her.

Within the next day, newspaper articles and news stories were spreading around the world.

One newspaper sat spread open on a table, displaying the title of a news story in large, bold black letters: "SCIENTISTS CREATE FEMALE GODZILLA".

Miki worked swiftly on a drawing of two creatures nestled around each other beneath the sea. Her teacher, a slightly older psychic named Asuka Okouchi, looked over Miki's shoulder and watched her careful work with the colored pencils.

"Is that the dream you had early this morning?" Asuka asked curiously.

Miki looked up and nodded, not sure whether to be happy, worried or upset. "Someone created a female clone of Godzilla, and now the clone and Godzilla are mates." She put down her pencil and settled her chin on her palm, staring at the drawing. "They're playing God…it's not right, but Godzilla is so happy. I can feel it. But I don't think it was the right thing to do…"

Two sets of irregular dorsal plates surged forward across the water's surface. A man sitting in a tiny motorboat screamed and covered his head with his hands as the two masses streaked by on either side, plunging him briefly into a clattering valley of bone and flesh. His small craft barely withstood the tremendous wake without capsizing.

The nuclear leviathans suddenly rose fully to the surface, causing quite a disturbance in the calm water as they mock-wrestled with each other for a short time. Whatever burst of energy that had come over them was spent during their brief bout of activity. After growing bored with their mock fight, they rested and drifted lazily with the current.

While Shezilla rested, Godzilla dug around her dorsal spikes with his claws to remove the strings of seaweed and small animals unlucky enough to have gotten between them. Then he rested while she groomed him, his eyes half-closed in cat-like contentment.

But Shezilla didn't feel like taking a nap and she certainly wasn't going to let Godzilla loll around all day! She gave her mate an especially hard headbutt that rolled him over in the water and darted off towards land. Godzilla righted himself, shook his mighty head to clear it and swam quickly behind the female to catch up.

Thirty minutes later, they were stepping out of the sea before one of Japan's large cities. Water flowed off their pitted flesh like ancient waterfalls, soaking sand and pavement.

The citizens fled in panic and the military, alerted far in advance of the monsters' approach, began to attack using ground-based tanks and large anti-aircraft cannons.

Shezilla roared and bellowed as bullets struck her and belched a stream of deadly radiation at the source of pain, causing a small string of explosions that further confused her. Godzilla answered her call and crashed over between her and the weapons being fired. He rained nuclear death down upon a second set of tanks rolling in from the left.

Simultaneously, the kaijus destroyed most of the tanks with their radioactive breath. The ammunition in the tanks exploded in the heat, causing more death and destruction. Jet fighters swooped in through the smoke, pelting the monsters with rockets and bullets.

Godzilla's tail swiped one of the jets to its doom and a constant stream of radioactive fire poured from his maw. His counterattack was much more savage as he fought to protect his mate from the stingers. Shezilla, not having the experience with the machines, crouched back, frightened and overwhelmed by the booms and flashes created from weapons being fired. Jet fighters crashed into buildings or the ground and exploded in great plumes of fire, illuminating her massive frame.

Shezilla caught an F-18 in her long claws, examined it briefly and set it down almost gently on top of a nearby building. Unfortunately the jet was too heavy for the damaged building to handle and the roof collapsed, taking the plane with it. Shezilla growled and pushed the rest of the building over with her bulky body.

The falling building landed across a group of tanks rolling in for an attack. Luckily the people inside were able to escape, but their plan of attack had been foiled in one swipe.

When Godzilla and Shezilla realized there were no more weapons being launched at them, they both roared triumphantly.

Miki had another hunch, a strong vision of a large white building with an underground chamber, and asked Asuka to drive her to the laboratory in Osaka. When they arrived, Miki hurried to the exact room where Kenpachiro, Emiko and Blake were working.

Kenpachiro and the others whirled around in surprise when the door crashed open.

Emiko jumped into Miki's path with both arms out, blocking her. "Hey, who the hell are you!"

"I can explain everything…" Miki began. "But first…I need to catch my breath."

Godzilla and Shezilla found the nuclear power plant in the middle of the city. They held the reactor between their bodies and consumed the radiation together. Stunned civilians watched the monsters nuzzle noses, sniff each other and growl, and a few swore the two creatures were almost smiling at each other.

That was all most people cared to see before joining the mob leaving the city.

Miki closed her eyes and frowned slightly. She raised a hand to the side of her head and turned towards the window. Her face melted into a haunted expression.

"What's wrong, Miki?" Emiko asked from her place at a computer across the room from Miki.

Opening her eyes, Miki looked over at Emiko and said, "Shezilla is experiencing strange sensations...I can't tell..."

"Are they mating again?" Kenpachiro asked.

Miki shook her head and touched her temple with two fingers, "They are too far away to read anymore than what I am telling you." She took a deep breath and sighed. "Going into their minds and emotions is strange."

"Doctor, you should take a look at this." Emiko called from across the room.

Kenpachiro walked over and looked over Emiko's shoulder. He frowned at the screen, dismayed by what he saw. Shezilla's life-signs were fluctuating drastically when they had been normal before. He adjusted the frequencies the monitors used to receive their data, but found the same results. Blake came over as well, followed by Miki.

"What's happening to Shezilla?" Blake asked.

"When we accelerated her growth process with radiation, we also accelerated her aging process." Kenpachiro answered with a sinking feeling. He typed in a few numbers, ran them into the computer and read the readout. It confirmed what he'd just stated.

"So...what does that mean? She's older than we thought?"

"It means that Shezilla is going to die within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours," Kenpachiro replied, narrowing his eyes to control the knot of anger twisting in the pit of his stomach. "Her organ systems are all going to fail. We erradiated her too soon. Internally she's aging at an accelerated rate and her body can't take it." He smashed his fist on the desk, "Damn it! I'm such a fool for not testing all the variables first! And now my creation…is going to be gone!"

Blissfully unaware of the dark shadow lurking in the near future, Godzilla and Shezilla did start mating again. Their thrashing about wrecked many of Tokyo's finest skyscrapers. Many people fled, but some watched this ritual with bafflement and fascination. Calls started coming in to the police, the news station and the fire department.

"They're at it again!" Blake called from the radio room. "I just heard a report about two Godzillas behaving oddly in the city. If only they had the concept of emotions. I'll bet when Shezilla dies, Godzilla will just walk off into the ocean without looking back."

"How can you say that, Blake!" Miki cried, "Monsters have feelings just like we do! When the military attacks, Godzilla always retaliates because he's angry. The monsters don't understand why they're being attacked! Their anger is so strong I can hardly stand it when I feel it!"

"I want to go to them." Kenpachiro suddenly said, interrupting the shouting match. "I must go to them right now, I want to see Shezilla one more time before her body starts to severely fail."

Godzilla and Shezilla ignored the approaching helicopter. They were too busy searching for more radiation and nipping at each other to notice it. The two kaijus realized there was no more nuclear energy around the area, so they started making a beeline for the next source of energy - Sapporo.

"They mate for life." Kenpachiro observed, his voice partially obscured by the engine of the helicopter.

"What?" Emiko called, leaning closer to hear.

"I said they mate for life." He repeated as he watched the monsters interact. "They look...happy. Like a couple taking a stroll together."

"They're about to destroy a city and he says they look like a couple…" Blake snorted, not believing the doctor's words.

The two monsters were clearly showing affection for each other, by going out of their way to nuzzle noses or make some kind of physical contact. Sometimes they would lash out at each other, exchanging almost playful claw-swats. For a moment, they even walked with their tails entwined.

It saddened Kenpachiro to know that soon, very soon, Shezilla would die, leaving Godzilla all alone again. He wished there was some way to stop or even reverse the aging process which had been accelerated to speed her growth and development. If only he'd thought of that before he started the experiment!

The cities in the path of Godzilla and Shezilla were evacuated. Kenpachiro hoped he had predicted the monsters' moves correctly, or many lives would be lost.

Godzilla looked over at Shezilla with growing unease and concern. She seemed to be weakening before his eyes, and it also seemed as if she was slowing down. Each hour, Shezilla seemed to grow thinner and weaker. He had to keep stopping so she could catch up. She needed to feed again. He could feel her energy leaking away like smoke from a fire.

The urge to protect his mate burned strongly in Godzilla's atomic heart. He would go to any length to keep her strong, fed and content.

They arrived in Sapporo and began a desperate search for nuclear materials. Shezilla demolished an apartment complex and roared in frustration. Godzilla answered with a roar of his own. He found the power plant and removed the reactor, decimating the entire power plant in the process.

Godzilla carried the nuclear device to his mate, placing it at her feet. Shezilla took the reactor and consumed the radiation, but it did little to raise her strength. It was like pouring sand into an already-emptying hourglass.

In the helicopter, Miki closed her eyes and concentrated. Her lips tightened as she shut out all the other psychic "voices" and zeroed in on Godzilla's and Shezilla's thoughts. She felt Godzilla's confusion at Shezilla's condition, and Shezilla's growing anxiety.

"Shezilla's weakening. Godzilla doesn't know why, so he keeps seeking out sources of radiation to feed her." Miki finally said. "He thinks she just needs more and more."

"Godzilla has the right idea, but her metabolism is moving too fast and her systems are burning out. Every hour is like another five to ten years for her internal organs." Emiko inquired.

"I think she's sinking faster than I predicted." Kenpachiro noted, watching Shezilla's life-signs, which were fading. He hung his head, closed his eyes and sighed loudly to himself. This was all his fault.

"Miki, is she in pain?" Blake suddenly asked, finally showing concern. Until that time, the blonde-haired man hadn't spoken a word.

Miki shifted from Godzilla's thoughts and feelings to Shezilla's. "She's tired, but in no pain. I think - "

"Hey, I need to refuel. I'm going to head back to base," The helicopter pilot interrupted them.

"Of course." Kenpachiro replied sullenly, "we must continue to monitor Godzilla and Shezilla." He watched his laptop computer, observing the twin blips as they moved over land.

The helicopter sped away to refuel, leaving Godzilla and Shezilla to each other once again.

Shezilla was feeling so strange, but couldn't understand why. No matter how much radiation she consumed, she continued to weaken. Exhaustion weighed heavily on her massive frame. Godzilla lumbered over and nuzzled his mate, almost like he was aware of her distress and trying to comfort her.

"How's Shezilla now?" Emiko asked her colleague. "Any change?"

Kenpachiro shook his head, "It could be any time…" A sudden lump formed in his throat. "If I had known this would happen I'd have never proceeded!"

Emiko put her hand on his shoulder consolingly, "Don't say that. You had no idea this would happen. Cloning is never a perfect science."

Kenpachiro sighed, "But Godzilla will be all alone again."

"But you gave him some friendship. Another of his kind," Miki joined the conversation, her eyes slightly faraway, "At least he had some time with another of his kind."

"But still, I feel as if I'm dangling something under his nose and then taking it away again." Kenpachiro sighed again and ran a hand through his short hair. He looked down at the blips on the screen as they moved steadily away. "They're going back to the water."

"Where are they heading?" Asked Emiko, craning her neck to see the computer screen.

"Just out to sea. Probably to sleep...which is something all of us need." Kenpachiro told everyone. "We can meet back in the lab in six hours or if the monsters appear."

They all agreed and went their separate ways when the helicopter landed.

Godzilla and Shezilla swam peacefully, side-by-side, in the dark ocean. Many people called in and reported the sightings one after another. Many boats altered their courses to avoid the two creatures.

The monsters, however, made no moves toward any of the boats in the water; they were too busy paying attention to each other. Despite being ponderous on land, they were very agile and graceful in the water. There was a playfulness about them that people couldn't help but watch.

Shezilla lifted her head above the water and roared over the waves. Godzilla rose and answered with a growl of his own. The two monsters nipped at each other for a minute, then Godzilla started picking the seaweed and other sea life from between Shezilla's dorsal plates. They switched places and Shezilla started picking at Godzilla's dorsal plates. After that, they rolled and wrestled around, creating large waves that capsized most of the small boats in the immediate vicinity.

Shezilla nipped her mate's neck playfully and splashed him with her tail. Godzilla grunted at this surprise "attack" and lightly slapped her back. After another bout of playful wrestling, the kaijus vanished beneath the sea.

Kenpachiro jumped when his phone rang and swore under his breath. He really needed to move that damn thing out of his room so it couldn't scare him out of a sound sleep anymore.

"Hello?" He mumbled groggily into the receiver.

"It's Miki. I just had a dream...Godzilla and Shezilla are heading for Tokyo again!" Came the excited voice of Miki from the other end. "You should come down here, Shezilla's readings are very weak - I can barely sense her."

"On my way." Kenpachiro hung up.

This time, he'd slept in his clothes. However, he still looked like a wreck: his hair was a mess and his clothes badly needed to be washed and ironed, but there was no time for either. He had just enough time to snatch himself a rice-cake that he crammed into his mouth on the way out the door.

Blake and Emiko received a call from Miki as well. They all met in the lab at the same time the monsters landed in Tokyo, which had been evacuated due to a timely warning from Miki and Asuka.

Miki, Emiko, Blake and Kenpachiro all piled into one car and they headed for Tokyo. None of them knew what to expect. By the time they arrived, great destruction was already at hand. Godzilla and Shezilla were tearing ferociously at the buildings surrounding them as they searched for sustenance.

Shezilla looked so...old. Her flesh appeared wrinkled and seemed to hang loosely on her aging frame. Her ribs stood out on her ravaged flanks and her eyes had sunk into their sockets. She barely had the strength to hobble alongside Godzilla as they went on their rampage.

Kenpachiro picked up his cell-phone and called the military. He told them to leave the monsters alone unless they headed deeper into the city. It would be a costly venture, but he wanted Shezilla to die with as little distress as possible. Money and damage could be dealt with later, he figured.

"How's Shezilla?" Emiko finally broke the strained silence.

"It's almost over. Any minute now." Kenpachiro swallowed hard and fought down another wave of tears. His creation was dying, and he couldn't save her! He watched helplessly as Shezilla's life signs dropped to a dangerously low level and waited for the inevitable.

Godzilla and Shezilla turned away from the tanks once they stopped firing their annoying stingers. Their slow, ponderous footsteps carried them back towards the ocean.

As time passed, Shezilla lagged further and further behind. Her feet dragged, the massive toe-claws digging deep furrows in the ground. She was so out of breath that she had to gasp through an open mouth. Finally she stopped walking and swayed drunkenly, too exhausted to go on.

Godzilla kept walking until he realized Shezilla wasn't following. He stopped, did an about-face and approached his mate. With a grunt, he nudged her gently from behind, urging her forward, but she wouldn't take a step more. Her once-bright eyes were fading, dimming, like a dying candle-flame. She looked painfully thin, old and tired.

Darkness was descending on Shezilla. Instinct told her to fight it, to push it away, but it was sapping her strength. She wanted to return to the sea with her mate, but couldn't move. Her stiff, swollen joints ached each time she tried.

With a little urging from Godzilla, Shezilla took a few more steps, but not in the direction they were previously heading. Instead, the female kaiju trudged up to a rocky wall that separated the public beach from the private, tree-filled beach-front property. She used her long claws to pull the wall down around her feet and uproot the trees on the other side. The trees rustled as they fell around and between the rocks. Those that didn't were swept into place by Shezilla's segmented tail.

Blake watched and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "She's building a nest. Hey, maybe she isn't going to die after all. She could be laying an egg!"

"After two days? No, it took four months for Shezilla to reach a foot in length. Even if something did conceive after they mated, it hasn't had time to form an eggshell." Kenpachiro replied sadly. He faced Emiko, Miki and Blake, "She is preparing a place to die."

As Kenpachiro spoke, Shezilla stepped into the nest she prepared and curled up on her side. Eerily like she was while inside the tank that gave her life until her birth.

Godzilla growled in bewilderment at his mate's weakness and Shezilla snorted back.

Bending over his fallen mate, Godzilla tried to urge Shezilla back to her feet. For several heart-wrenching minutes, Shezilla struggled to rise for him, but couldn't. She finally sank back to the rocky ground, exhausted and weak. Her raspy, shallow breathing heaved her massive sides

Miki frowned as she picked up on Shezilla's feelings. The kaiju was confused and afraid, unaware of the death descending upon her. She only knew that an invisible force was making her body weak and stealing the air from her lungs.

Godzilla tried as hard as he could to get Shezilla back onto her feet, but Shezilla kept pushing him away with her tail, like she didn't want to get up. She couldn't if she tried. Still, Godzilla gently gripped Shezilla's arm and tugged, but she just howled in pain and tried to bite him. Confused by the odd behavior, he bent over and sniffed to try and figure out by smell what was ailing her.

Shezilla felt her strength ebbing. The darkness continued to consume her. Soon the world was dimmer than a night without a moon. She turned her head a fraction of a degree and peered desperately at her mate. Didn't he see this blackness too? Why wasn't he fighting to chase it off?

Godzilla knew something was happening to Shezilla, his sense of smell detected a rapid drop in her energy. His mate could not die! Not now! Each time the thought crossed his mind, he stomped his clawed feet twisted his neck desperately with the hopes of spotting a source of energy nearby.

Kenpachiro, his face suddenly wild, jumped out of the car and stumbled up the hill to see the monsters better. For a moment, he made eye contact with Shezilla. Her eyes were very dim looking, almost not seeing. She would never know the strange, tiny pink being with two legs was the one who gave her life.

"I'm sorry, Shezilla. I'm so sorry. Godzilla, I'm sorry..." Kenpachiro fell to his knees, sobbing. It was too painful to look into her eyes for so long. Emiko brought a handkerchief to him and put her arm around his shoulders. She carefully led him back to the car.

"It's time," Miki breathed. She saw what Shezilla saw; everything was getting so dark. She could also sense Godzilla's growing unease.

Godzilla nudged Shezilla's neck lightly with his nose and sniffed her again, still seeking in vain for what made her so suddenly weak. Shezilla slowly lifted her head and nuzzled noses with Godzilla, then put her head down again. Her sides heaved slower, quieter, she stopped struggling to breathe. Godzilla finally squatted down beside his mate like a watchful guard over a precious artifact. He could sense her weakening, he could sense death fast approaching her, but he didn't know what else to do. So he just sat there, comforting his mate in her last moments.

Before the monitors and machines were able to alert the Kaijuologists, Miki gasped and clapped a hand to her forehead. She could sense Shezilla's spirit as it emerged from her body. It was a pure soul, something a human being never knew a monster could have.

"Shezilla...it's happening." She whispered softly, then turned her attention back to Godzilla. Tears rolled down her cheeks, "She's going, I can feel it."

"Goodbye, Shezilla. I'm so sorry," Kenpachiro whispered, watching the two monsters huddle together among the rocks. He could barely see them through the tears blurring his eyes.

Shezilla emitted a soft, raspy growl that stirred a cloud of dust around her maw. She twitched like a startled dreamer, blinked and became still. The slow heaving of her sides halted. Her pupils dilated and her eyelids fell half-shut as her vision contracted to a brilliant pinprick of light brighter than the sun.

There was no ground or sky, no up or down. Just the calm sensation of weightless drifting. Accepting the darkness that washed over and around her, Shezilla relaxed and allowed it to carry her away.

Godzilla, startled at the movement or by an unseen force, rose to his feet and blinked down at the suddenly still form before him. He tilted his head back and spewed a massive stream of radioactive fire straight up at the sky, trying to blast the twinkling lights that he knew were beyond his reach. He swayed his head and howled mournfully at the stars that took Shezilla's spirit from him. Over and over. Each pitiful, bell-like roar echoed all over the beach, carrying with it his frustration, pain and anguish like a sad song.

As the human onlookers watched, Godzilla closed his eyes, bent down and lapped the side of Shezilla's head with his pointed tongue, cleaning away dust from their rampage in the city. He moved behind her and picked pieces of buildings, trees and rocks out of her dorsal plates. Stood up and looked around, growling with bared teeth. Squatted again and took hold of her hand, then dropped it. The hand crashed against the rocks, lifeless.

He did not know why his mate had died. For some odd reason, he didn't feel angry enough to destroy the humans or their odd little rolling machines. It was another emotion, one he'd never felt before. The emotion swept over him, making his heart heavy and something strange happen to his eyes.

As Miki and the Kaijuologists watched, Godzilla stooped down over his mate and stared at her inert frame. They saw something in his eyes that they never thought the King of the Monsters was ever capable of, but it was the most human thing they'd ever seen.

Tears.

Two sparkling droplets rolled from the corners of Godzilla's eyes to his cheeks. They shone brilliantly like diamonds in the spotlights trained on him as they dripped off the sides of his snout and landed on the rocks above Shezilla's head with two faintly audible pat-pat sounds.

All was quiet after that. So quiet that Kenpachiro and the others in the car heard Godzilla's slow, growl-like breathing. Even the spotlights ceased their waving and stayed on the huge kaiju while he squatted motionlessly beside Shezilla.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the inevitable moment when he would fly into a rage.

The people were in for a long wait.

Three hours dragged by and nothing happened. Not once during that entire time did Godzilla move, and no one had ever seen him stay so still. He was like a statue hunched over Shezilla's dead body, afraid to leave her in case by some miracle she suddenly woke up.

Dawn broke over the horizon, turning the sky pale and igniting the ocean into a curtain of sparkles. Godzilla faced the budding sunrise and squinted in its brilliance. The light didn't catch Shezilla's eyes at all, and he instantly recognized their lack of sparkle. He bent down and sniffed his mate again. Her scent was cold, the stale, biting smell of death.

It was then that the monster finally seemed to realize that his mate wasn't going to rise. That he was alone again.

Godzilla stood up and growled a moan of despair. His long tail stirred the sand and his fists closed. He just couldn't bring himself to leave Shezilla laying there while those tiny two-legged animals in their strange machines waited to feed off her.

There was only one way to make sure of that.

Facing the tanks lined up between the beach and the city, Godzilla opened his jaws and spewed his atomic ray. The tanks exploded in balls of fire to send turrets, treads and shrapnel flying everywhere. Those that escaped the blast sped out of range before Godzilla could shoot his second burst, which tore apart a clump of jeeps parked by the road.

Then he turned and faced the hill where a tiny silvery rolling object sat gleaming in the sun. His predatory eyes narrowed and focused as if staring down an invisible sniper's scope.

Blake blinked at Godzilla through the side window. "Oh shit! Ken, MOVE!"

Kenpachiro saw what was coming. He jammed the car into drive and the vehicle skidded off the hill, jarring everyone inside. Less than three seconds after the car moved, Godzilla's radioactive ray blasted the hilltop, scorching it. Heat from the radiation buffeted the small vehicle, but fortunately everyone inside suffered no injuries.

Kenpachiro stepped on the brakes and stopped at the foot of the hill. That had been too close! He twisted his head around to see Godzilla shifting his bulk around towards Shezilla's carcass.

Mournfully, Godzilla bellowed again. He needed to return to the sea and yet he couldn't leave his mate here with the two-leggers. If he could not have her, they couldn't either.

Miki blinked as she sensed Godzilla's unease about leaving. Shezilla's body was too large to bury and would pose a severe health hazard to the city if left to decompose naturally.

Still, the young woman smiled with a bright idea.

Closing her eyes, Miki placed an image of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, into Godzilla's mind. She showed him that it was a place too deep and dark for any humans to mess with. Then she opened her eyes and sighed, watching the large monster twist his head to stare at the sea.

Godzilla blinked rapidly at the morning sunlight. He squatted beside Shezilla and shoved her limp body with his arms, rolling her over into the waves. Her flesh turned dark and shiny when the water crashed over her frame. Deep furrows in the sand and rocks marked where she had been lying.

Godzilla straightened, churning the waves with his tail, and roared defiantly at the horizon. He placed his claws ever-so-gently around Shezilla's tail and slowly towed her out to sea. Water surged around his thick legs as he walked, almost gracefully, into the rising sun, dragging his mate carefully behind. When the water reached his chest he dove and swam until his dorsal plates vanished under the scintillating waves.

"He doesn't understand that she's dead, does he?" Blake watched, shocked.

Emiko corrected him, "He doesn't understand why she is dead. Even we, as human beings, would feel terrible pain if someone we cared about suddenly died for no apparent reason. The only difference is we know how to find out what caused the death. Godzilla doesn't. I would be confused too if I was in his situation."

"Is Godzilla…okay?" Kenpachiro asked Miki when he could no longer see the massive monster. "Where is he taking Shezilla?"

"Godzilla is okay. I told him to take Shezilla's body to the Mariana Trench, where it would be safe from the guns and the missiles." Miki took a breath, gazed out the window and watched the water sparkle. She narrowed her eyes in thought. "I…I never realized it was possible to break Godzilla's heart, but I was wrong. I can still feel his grief even from this far away."

"We all do, Miki." Blake told her, placing a hand on her shoulder as Kenpachiro solemnly shifted the car into drive and pulled onto the road. "We all do."

Fish parted and sharks scattered as a massive shape carrying another just like it passed through their midst. Fishing boats drifted by above, unaware of what swam below them, and some of the people on board had no idea of the depth underneath their nets.

Godzilla, with Shezilla trailing behind him like a balloon in the wind, swam inexorably into the dark underwater valley, drawn to what he saw in a vision while on the beach. It was a place where only beings of the deep dared go. It was peaceful here, no predators, no little two-leggers, just the dark, imposing silence.

He stopped swimming and drifted above the blackness that led to the deepest part of the ocean. It was so deep that not even his eyes could penetrate the blackness. He let Shezilla's tail slip out of his claws and watched her bulk sink headfirst into the dark, her arms, legs and tail flailing gently in the wake of her passage. She drifted further and further down until only her white dorsal plates gleamed.

Shezilla's body drifted into the blackness until she came to rest across a long embankment near the center of the trench. The impact of her body dug a furrow into the sand, creating an inky cloud that further shrouded her from view. She rolled down the incline until her body came to rest facedown against the wall of the trench itself. The dust stirred by her landing settled around her prone form like a blanket. Her dorsal plates remained above the soil like gravestones.

Her gravestones.

Seemingly satisfied, Godzilla twisted around and headed for the surface. This was his territory now and he was going to guard it from anything that came too close. That included the little floating rocks drifting above him.

The people in the fishing boats saw a huge blip on their radar just a few seconds before a massive wave of blue fire exploded from the water and engulfed them. None of the people knew what hit them. Their boats became funeral pyres that drifted until they sank.

Godzilla poked his head out of the water amidst broken pieces of debris and roared to claim his victory. He watched the last boat slip underwater as if it had never been there. The water calmed, disturbed only by Godzilla's movements to stay afloat.

Now finally alone, massive kaiju snorted in the silence and decided to take a nap. He closed his eyes and rolled over onto his belly so his dorsal plates loomed across the bright disc of the freshly-risen sun. In seconds, he was sound asleep.

Godzilla saw a silhouetted shape waiting for him in the distance. It came closer under the sweltering crimson sky he remembered before the cold flash turned everything to ice. The flare of a volcano briefly illuminated her form in all its glory for him to see.

Shezilla opened her jaws and bellowed, her feral eyes flashing and her bell-like voice echoing victoriously across the expanse that separated them. Godzilla replied with a snarling roar of his own. He watched his mate turn away with her head high and lumber into the distance. Always in his sight, yet beyond his touch.

But she was alive.

She would live as long as he could dream.