**Historian's Note; This adventure takes place in the early 1970's, sometime between 'Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster' and the next movie, 'Godzilla Vs. Gigan'**
As a blazing summer sun rained down rays of light across a patch of the Pacific Ocean, all was not well aboard a tiny man-made object floating amongst the shimmering waves. The Japanese fishing ship, Yuriko Maru, was finding the lack of fish in the area frustrating and confusing.
With all of their nets completely empty, the crew and captain could do little more than frown at the horizon and wonder where their livelihood had gone. They had been here many times down through the years, but today was different.
"It even feels wrong. Strange," the Captain admitted to one of his men.
His First Mate was about to agree, when they both instinctively clutched the edge of the railing of the small boat, as she dipped and began to slowly turn to port. Without the engines on, it was confusing to the sailors and made them look to one another and overboard for the cause. They were much too far out from shore for the ship to have struck rocks, and the waves were normal. At least for several long seconds.
Then the Yuriko Maru began to drift backwards, gaining speed as she went in reverse, her engines still quiet.
"What is this?!" the Captain demanded, struggling to reach the wheel to steer his small craft in the right direction. "What're you doing to my boat, Akira?!" he snapped at his helmsman.
The sailor had no answers, until he caught a glimpse of something off in the distance, which seemed to be coming closer to them- or them to it!
They squinted in the cheerful sunlight over the edge near the aft of the boat, and were astonished to see a swirling sink hole, a watery vortex, which the boat was being dragged backwards into.
"Engines full power! Full speed ahead! Do it now!" the Captain ordered futilely, as his boat was hauled backwards faster and faster, and finally downwards into the spiralling, churning purple waters of the whirlpool, as the cheerful sun looked on.
Dragged underneath with no human witnesses, the Yuriko Maru became the latest statistic of the seas without a trace of her or a single survivor.
Powerful jet engines screamed across the sky above the Pacific Ocean, as the manta ray-shaped Flying Sub searched for the S. , a Nelson Institute research ship stationed in the northwest Pacific Ocean off Japan. She was a medium-sized research vessel, with all the high-tech equipment needed to conduct experiments, and was supposed to transfer samples to the Seaview. The submarine would then bring the samples and data back to States, but the ship was overdue and hadn't been heard from for six days.
"I just don't understand it," Admiral Harriman Nelson growled under his breath, although Captain Lee Crane heard it clearly. "Captain Parker is an old sea dog, if there ever was one. He knows the sea, he's been to the four corners of the Earth- as an officer in the United States Navy and working for me at the Institute. So where is he?"
It wasn't a question Crane could answer, having just met Parker a few months ago, but he took Nelson's word for it that Parker was too experienced to get himself lost or find himself in trouble that he couldn't handle. Instead he watched the Pacific race beneath them like a hawk, hoping to find a trace of the vessel.
The Seaview was off searching another part of the ocean, and the Flying Sub had covered even more territory under water, until Nelson gradually became more and more impatient and had them break the surface. It made sense, since the craft could cover twice as much territory in the air as they could underwater. As much as they wanted to find the research vessel, they didn't want to find a clue in the form of what they ended up locating minutes later.
"There! I see something on the surface off to port!" Crane said, leaning forward in his co-pilot chair.
Nelson turned the hand-held controls to the left, making the yellow and black Flying Sub bank in a fast turn, seconds later coming face to face with what Crane had seen. Their shoulders sank in unison, as a large oil slick on the surface of the ocean was located by them. With eyes meeting in silent concern, Nelson faced the large rectangular windows grimly, and mumbled,
"Prepare to dive."
The Flying Sub's pointed nose dipped a few degrees, and then several more as Nelson lined up his brainchild with the glistening ocean, increased the power to the forward shields, and sent the ship diving into the sea as only the Flying Sub was capable of doing. Crane activated several controls that would switch over the craft from airborne ship to submersible, as Nelson banked the small yellow and black sub, to pilot them near the billowing trail of oil.
As they followed the oily trail farther downward, the inevitable happened- the Flying Sub located the wreckage of S. , which barely resembled the boat that Nelson had personally designed and had overseen the construction. She had numerous holes in her hull, which seemed twisted somewhat, as if bent within a powerful whirlpool, and was missing her aft section where her engines should have been located, and in fact a part of her forward section looked like a toy boat that had been stepped on by a petulant child. Strangest of all, seaweed was already beginning to grow in parts of her hull and windows, while some areas were caked with a purplish substance on the hull.
"My God. That's her," Nelson frowned. "Contact the Seaview, and get her here on the double. I need to know what happened here."
"Aye, sir," Crane said, solemnly.
The Seaview would take almost a half hour to arrive on the scene, but it couldn't be helped. Nelson was just about to issue an order to have a team of divers sent out to examine the wreckage, until sonar technician Kowalski interrupted the radio message with a call to First Officer Chip Morton.
"Sir! I'm registering a large sonar contact at 223 mark 6!"
"Stand-by, Admiral; Kowalski has picked up something on sonar!" Morton said into the microphone. He approached Kowalski, and saw the faint image on the scope, himself, for several seconds, but nothing that could be identified before it disappeared.
"I've lost contact, sir," Kowalski admitted, adjusting his controls. He shook his head, and looked up at the second-in-command, adding, "Whatever it was, I think it either crossed into our range and turned around, or it knew we were here and backed off."
"We saw it, too," Nelson stated over the mic. "I think it deserves a closer look- we'll handle it."
Morton was about to acknowledge, when Kowalski's scope began to ping once more, but from a different direction.
"Second sonar contact located. It can't be the same object- it's approaching us from 179 mark 3."
"Get a fix and identify it, Kowalski," Nelson ordered over the mic, frustrated that he wasn't aboard his submarine.
Kowalski would have very little time to confirm what it was, let alone what it was doing, as his voice rose in concern.
"It's a sub, sir! Sir! It's firing torpedoes!"
"Helm! Hardtoport! Flank speed!" Morton shouted.
The helmsmen at the front of the control room went into action, and the Seaview tilted to the left, swinging away from her stationary position. Two torpedoes skewered the water where the great sub had been seconds later, and impacted harmlessly against a rocky ridge, creating shock waves that made everyone aboard the Seaview hold on to the nearest railing or wall to steady themselves, even as she turned to face her enemy head on.
"Missile Room; load torpedo tubes one to four! Prepare to return fire!" Morton commanded, his hand holding the microphone so tight he thought he might crush it in his bare hand.
As the Seaview came about to return fire, a surprised shout came from the radio shack, as Sparks, the radio operator, drew Morton's attention away from Kowalski's sonar station.
"Mister Morton! I'm receiving an emergency call! It must be coming from the other sub! They've identified themselves as the Boretsky, and are immediately standing down- no further attacks will take place. The commander's requesting open communication."
Morton thought about this and asked Nelson what he wanted to do.
"Patch us in on the same channel. I want to do the talking, Chip."
"Aye, sir. Make contact, Sparks."
The conversation didn't go as anyone expected, as the usually-boisterous and derogatory tones of a Soviet officer were, instead, replaced with an apology from the Russian captain.
"It wasn't my intention to fire on your submarine. We were chasing a different sonar contact, when yours came into range. I did some quick calculations, after I fired at you, for that I apologize. Your vessel obviously was not responsible for one of our oil tankers sinking,"
Nelson and Crane looked at one another aboard the Flying Sub, but neither could understand the statement from the Russian captain.
"Captain, I'm relieved to know that you know it wasn't the Seaview, but I'm rather curious. What changed your mind?" Nelson wondered.
The two crews could almost see the sad smile on the face of the Russian officer, as his voice told them, "Your Seaview is just a vessel, Admiral. Zhdanov-Star was destroyed by a living beast!"
Shortly after signing off, the Russian sub turned and headed off in a different direction, while Nelson informed the nearby U.S. Tenth Fleet of their encounters, and requested permission to enter Japanese and Russian waters to help in the investigation of not only the downed Intrepid, but also the Zhdanov-Star.
"I can't help but think they must be connected in some way. Both ships were found at the bottom of the sea within ten nautical miles of one another," Nelson revealed.
"But a 'beast', Admiral?" Crane questioned, even though he immediately bit his own lip. "What am I talking about? We've found specimens of unique undersea life before, so I suppose anything is possible.".
Just then, Kowalski reported yet another large sonar contact again, but in the opposite direction of the Boretsky. Nelson and Crane investigated, sending the Flying Sub at full speed towards the signal, ahead of the Seaview, only to watch as the contact altered course several times
"I'm not picking up any form of engine sounds on the sonar, Admiral," Kowalski reported aboard the Seaview. "Whatever it is, it looks like it's performing a search pattern of its own! It's a powerful signal, so it must be something really big!"
"If it's not the Russian sub, could it actually be-" Crane was in the process of asking, when a second signal came over their speakers.
A short distress signal from the commander of the Boretsky ended abruptly in mid-sentence, which didn't bode well. The captain had barely asked for help from the Seaview, when his urgent words were cut off in midsentence.
"Chip, you and the Seaview will investigate the Russian's status, while the Flying Sub will search for that other mysterious sonar contact," Nelson ordered.
As the Seaview travelled in a different direction, the Flying Sub's engines were running hot and heavy, trying to catch up to the large sonar contact. Nelson was about to tap the boosters, when the small craft began to tilt and judder, as she encountered violent currents and murky water the closer it gets to the object.
"Whatever that contact is-" Nelson said through gritting teeth, as he tried to right the writhing Flying Sub, "it's capable of churning up alot of area in its wake!"
As the two senior officers of the Seaview struggled to maintain control of their situation, the fate of the Russian submarine was sealed, as the Seaview gracefully entered a debris field at the bottom of the sea. Just as they had located the twisted remains of the S. , the Seaview found the wrecked Soviet sub, Boretsky, torn apart in the same manner as the American research ship, leaking oil to the surface as the ill-fated Zhdanov-Star had previously..
The currents and murky water made it too difficult to continue the pursuit of the sonar contact, so Nelson piloted the Flying Sub away from the fast-moving object that was up ahead, even as the equipment detected an increase in radiation. Nelson checked his instruments and frowned to himself. "That contact is speeding away faster than any submarine possibly could, but at least we got some infrared photos of whatever it is."
"What's our next move, Admiral?" Lee Crane wanted to know.
"We get back to the Seaview on the double, so I can get these photos processed to find out what we might be up against."
Nelson wasted no time docking with the Seaview and rushing the film from the Flying Sub into the developing room, as Crane took over his usual duties in the control room. Within a half hour of coming back on board his sub, Lee was paged by Nelson, who wanted to speak to Crane and Morton in his cabin. Once there, Nelson tossed glistening black and white 8 by 10's across his desk at his senior officers. The two men examined them, but they were, unfortunately, somewhat blurry and hard to identify- if you didn't know firsthand what the images were supposed to be.
"I really can't tell what this is supposed to be, Admiral," Crane reluctantly admitted. "Do you?"
The Admiral nodded, grimly. "I think I just might. We were only able to photograph these images of jagged spines on the back of a creature and one of a barely visible, but massive tail can be seen. If it is what I think it is, gentlemen, then these are photos of a giant creature known as 'Godzilla'."
Crane and Morton looked at each other, but both were lost. "What's a...'god zilla', Admiral? Some kind of oversized fish or whale-like creature?"
"No, Lee. If it is Godzilla, we're dealing with an extremely powerful, very ancient monster that has been spotted and encountered in and around Japan many times over the past two decades."
Nelson used his computer to print out a grainy photo of a huge dinosaur-like creature. And even more disturbing, the thing was towering over office buildings beside it! He then recalled his own encounter in 1954 as a young seaman aboard a U. stationed off Japan, when the giant monster first surfaced at sea, and later attacked Japan, surviving all manner of weapons used against it.
"Barrages of machines guns and rockets, which would surely have ripped any other life form to pieces, simply bounced off Godzilla's tough hide. The monster even made it to land, and shattered buildings, tore trains from their rails, and caused severe damage and havoc in Tokyo and the surrounding area. I thought for sure that the Japanese would ask for our help, since we were stationed off their coast, but they never did. In fact, in the next several encounters down through the years, Japan has never asked for our help, preferring to rely on the tactical skills of the United Nations!"
"Several encounters'?!" Crane repeated with a gasp.
"You heard correct, Lee. In fact, Godzilla has had company more than a few times when he's made an appearance, and it's always led to numerous deaths and billions of dollars in property damage. Sometimes the monster, that the Japanese named 'Godzilla', has aggressively fought the Japanese army and navy, rampaging like a living tornadic-earthquake, and other times he's practically defended Japan against other giant creatures, that the Japanese called Kong, Rodan, Ghidrah and Hedorah."
Crane sniffed derisively, telling the Admiral, "Well, if this 'Godzilla' tries to attacks us or if I find out it was responsible for all these deaths I'll make sure Seaview makes short work of this monster!"
Nelson actually shrugged, and offered, "From what I've seen just one ship won't be a match for the creature's power. Perhaps not even Seaview, with all her armament."
A short time later the Seaview was engaged in a search of the area of wrecked Russian sub, Boretsky, when Kowalski's sonar scope came alive, and it wasn't good news. Crane requested Nelson's presence in the control room as his young technician registered one, then two large sonar contacts.
"The larger one is approaching us slowly, while the second one sorta looks like it's trying to intercept the first!" Kowalski surmised, his eyes locked on his round scope screen.
"Are either one of the contacts submarines?" Crane asked.
"Can't be, sir- I'm not picking up any form of mechanical return signal."
"Then it'll be that Godzilla-thing the Admiral mentioned," Crane said, looking over his shoulder at Morton who was standing nearby.
"Godz-what?" Kowalski asked.
"Man your station, Kowalski," Crane ordered. "Chip, signal battle stations."
Morton grabbed the nearest microphone and ordered the ship to battle status, sending sirens blaring and men into action positions throughout the ship.
"Sir," Kowalski added, "the object that's coming in to intercept us is travelling in a crazy zig zag motion. This is gonna sound nutty, but it reminds me of how a snake travels in water!"
Crane and Morton looked at one another, just as Nelson arrived from his cabin, so they gave him a quick update.
"First object is 1500 feet from us; second object on intercept course is at 2800 and closing fast!" Kowalski reported.
"There it is!" Morton shouted, seeing a murky image begin to take form clearer and clearer through the forward viewports, and it was a surprise to everyone that laid eyes on it. The Seaview had come face to face with a massive, familiar, and powerful giant seaweed creature that they had encountered before.
As gigantic as an office building, the monster possessed two immense, glowing orange eyes on top of its body, and was covered head to toe in a flowing, dangling seaweed-like covering that hid its arms and however many legs it stood on. Even through the thick protective windows, the crew could hear it's inhuman, gurgling, watery roar as it beheld the Seaview. It turned towards the sub, as if to accept an unspoken challenge from the vessel.
"It's that creature we've encountered before!" Crane gasped. "How the heck did it get this far from the previous sighting areas? We fought it thousands of miles away from here in a completely different hemisphere! And it looks even larger, as if it's grown since then!"
"Not only that, the last time we saw that thing we fired missiles at it, at point-blank range, which we thought had killed it!" Nelson noted.
"Second sonar contact is 400 feet away and closing!" Kowalski reported, shifting his attention between his flashing round scope and his view outside through the windows.
"Stand-by to fire torpedoes!" Crane ordered.
"Missile Room shows ready!" Morton confirmed, checking the board.
It wouldn't be necessary, as the second contact was upon them within seconds, and it was just as awe-inspiring, if not, frightening as the giant seaweed monster. The second object turned out to be, yet another, sea monster from the darkest regions of the sea, this one a massive sea snake / sea serpent with four stubby, small legs useful only for swimming.
And it virtually ignored the Seaview.
The serpent went straight for the seaweed creature, swimming in and around the beast to draw it's attention, then smashed it near the head with the huge fins of its tail. The seaweed monster roared in pain or outrage, raising its arms to try and grab the serpent, which was too fast for it.
The sea-snake creature swung around again, growling and intent on its target, swimming in close enough to encircle the seaweed monster, which reached out to grab the serpent, only to recieve a fairly high electrical charge from the snake, as if it were part giant electric eel. The seaweed monster cried out in pain, it's seaweed-covered arms waving about to avoid touching the serpent, which took that opportunity to tighten its grasp around the body of the larger monster, and impart another massive jolt of electricity. The seaweed monster shrieked in pain and outrage, and despite the fiery pain of the discharge, grasped hold of the serpent neck, near it's Chinese dragon-like head.
Nelson identified it as 'Manda' from the Japanese monster data he had been going over in his cabin, after Crane and Morton had returned to the control room.
"Can this 'Manda'-thing beat something like that other monster?" Crane wondered.
Nelson watched the action outside his super-sub, and found himself shaking his head. "I have a feeling we're about to be disappointed. Look."
Manda continued to attack the seaweed monster with electrical charges, but the voltage seemed to be less and less with every discharge, until all Manda had was its slithery strength, and even that was no match with something with two arms. Choked out until Manda lost consciousness, the serpent went limp around the seaweed monster, which growled and gurgled with murderous smugness.
Captain Crane had the Seaview attack by firing a pair of torpedoes at near point-blank range at the seaweed monstrosity, but the monster reacted fast enough in time to raise the struggling, weakened form of Manda to use him as a shield to block the speeding torpedoes. Manda twisted and growled in pain as the torpedoes exploded off his armor-plated, scaled hide, then was surprised as the seaweed monster threw him at the Seaview.
There was no time to react as the 200-foot long sea serpent was launched at the ship, colliding with it with such an impact that control panels burst in flame and sparks, forcing the submarine to to sink as it was weighed down by the monster draped over it. Dragged down by an animal that weighed more than the actual sub, the Seaview continued to sink lower and lower until she and the serpent hit the bottom of the ocean.
Satisfied that two enemies were at its mercy, the seaweed monster began to approach them, intent on finishing off both the Seaview and Manda. The invincible sea monster growled and roared, perhaps uttering death threats to its two targets, slowly stomping towards them, perhaps expecting to tear both apart and eat both for dinner, until it unexpectedly paused. It roared and looked about with the giant orange globes that acted as its eyes, and then as if sensing danger, the beast turned away from the damaged sub and injured serpent, and slowly trudged off into the murky depths until the green sea hid its form and enveloped it completely.
As the barely stirring Manda tried to regain its senses, the crew of the Seaview were on high alert and racing about putting out fires and trying to bring their controls back on line in the red lighting of the emergency lights.
"That idiotic sea serpent forced us down without our ballast tanks engaged, so we're trying to compensate," Crane told Nelson. "We'll be at proper pressure in about two minutes."
"Which begs the questions; how do we get that giant snake off of Seaview?" Nelson asked. "It's lying on top of us, and it's too heavy to push off."
"Electrically charge the hull?" Morton suggested.
Nelson looked sourly at his officer. "You saw what it did to the other creature- it would probably like electricity. Besides, it tried to help us, so I don't want to make an enemy out of it, too!"
It took longer than two minutes to get Kowalski's sonar back on-line, and when it was reactivated, Kowalski had to whip off his head-phones because a new signal was so loud and clear that the young officer reported to Nelson and Crane that it was practically right on top of them! Through the forward observation windows Crane and Nelson couldn't see anything, so they went back close to Kowalski's station to activate a sail camera and find out what was so close to them.
Seconds before the TV screen came to life, everyone present heard a wailing roar like none of them, save Admiral Nelson, had ever heard before. They looked to the ceiling of the control room as one, but only Nelson uttered a name.
"Godzilla!"
It was true! The most famous of all the Japanese kaiju had turned up, and it towered over the damaged Seaview, and the stirring Manda. The serpent shook it's massive dragon-like head as if to clear it's monster mind, and slowly slid off of the submarine, beholding Godzilla, who towered over Manda and the undersea vessel, but didn't launch an attack against it, as if it knew that Godzilla was an ally.
The crew watched on the big screen television set on the wall as the monsters growled at each other, their reptilian gurgling and rasping, almost as if in conversation, then Manda rose gracefully, and whipped its huge tail to gain speed and swim away. As Manda left the area, heading back out to open sea in the opposite direction of Japan, Godzilla stared down at the blue submarine. His snout wiggled as if smelling for fear, he bared his huge jagged teeth and fangs, then turned around, seemingly deciding that the Seaview just wasn't important enough to be given further attention.
The crew watched the TV screen as Godzilla headed towards Japan, in the same direction as the behemoth seaweed monster had retreated towards.
"It's leaving the area," Crane noted, "in the same direction as the first monster. What do the Japanese call that big seaweed monstrosity?"
Nelson shook his head. "I didn't see it in any of the reports I examined, but what I read only went back as far as 1954. However our first task is to get Seaview repaired and try to catch up to Godzilla. He's unpredictable, and just might go ashore, and wreck half the country. What city are we closest to, Chip?"
Chip checked the maps and responded with, "We're less than ten miles away from Hitachi."
"We've got to catch up to this Godzilla creature as soon as possible," Crane asserted, picking up a microphone and contacting the engine room. The news was not good.
"The engines are running too hot to go faster than one-quarter speed, sir," the engineer replied, sounding apologetic. "That hit we took from above played havoc with the controls, and we need more time to get her back up to speed."
"All right. Work fast- we need to intercept God-" Crane said, before he stopped himself in midsentence, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed. "That is, we have to intercept something heading towards Japan."
"Aye, aye, sir."
It wasn't long before Sparks called attention to a television transmission he was able to pick up, which he knew would interest his commanders.
"Sirs! The local television station has just interrupted programming with an emergency broadcast! They're ordering people to evacuate Hitachi immediately!"
Nelson shook his head. "That can't be- Godzilla couldn't have made landfall already! And Manda was heading out to open sea, the last we saw of it."
Crane thought about it, and his logical answer was unbelievable. "You don't think it was...?
"One way to find out," Nelson told him. He called over to Sparks to transfer the TV signal to the big screen near Kowalski's station.
They were presented with a shaky camera, that switched views erratically, as if the person carrying it was running, turning around to film, and then retreating again. The TV reporter that accompanied the cameraman climbed behind a pickup truck for protection, looking about as terrified as a man whose world was coming to an end. He began to speak quickly, urgently, in Japanese, apparently reporting on the arrival of a living nightmare.
The camera shifted in a blur towards the marina, and after a moment of out-of-focus movement, the image sharpened, as the Japanese reporter screamed panicked commentary.
It was the giant seaweed monster that they had just fought, and it was in Hitachi rising out of bay, causing wide spread panic as citizens ran about in all directions, crying out in fear and frenzy as their quiet city was invaded by a creature hundreds of feet tall that probably saw the people as food. The muffled roar that they had heard underwater was now broadcast out in the open air, and it was a terrible bellow, that carried for miles and hurt the ears of everyone that was subjected to it.
"It's never gone in-land before!" Crane gasped, incredulous. "It's always been under the sea! We never knew it could do that! Why's it come out of the sea now?!"
Nelson grimaced, responding, "Only one answer...Godzilla!"
The beast that lived at the bottom of the sea trudged closer and closer to a marina, displacing huge areas of water like a mini tsunami, making boats capsize and collide with one another like toys. The waves crashed against the shore, across observation platforms and into the marina's offices, shattering and splintering whole sections that were made of wood. The water pushed even further inland, chasing people like a living thing, smashing into cars and forcing them to bash themselves against each other and the far wall of a parking lot.
As the monster began to lay waste to the shoreline, the Japanese reporter continued his panicked commentary, which began to frustrate Nelson, as he wanted to know what was happening. Morton suggested bringing one of the Seaview's crewman, Takarada, to the control room to translate, which the Admiral agreed to.
The seaweed creature continued to trudge towards the panicked city, finally setting foot on dry land, which quickly became drenched in sea water from the shaggy, seaweed hide of the massive beast. Like a sudden heavy rainfall, cars and property were equally drenched from sea water falling off the monster, even as its hidden mammoth feet crushed cars and trucks beneath its heavy, lumbering feet.
Takarada showed up as the monster made it across the first road, and his eyes widened at the televised image of the seaweed monster. "Oh, my-!" the Japanese crewman gasped. "I think I know what thing is!"
"I know, we've fought it three times before," Crane asserted.
"No, no, sir. I think my father encountered that thing when he was a young man. At least, it matches his general description," Takarada revealed. "He once told me a story of how his boat encountered-"
"That's fine, that's fine, Takarada, but we need you to tell us what that reporter is saying right now!"
"Aye, sir."
Takarada listened intently and relayed, The reporter is virtually begging citizens to evacuate Hitachi...the hospital is being evacuated...he's concerned that the monster might destroy a nearby bridge... as well as his TV station."
"Are they going to send in the army to engage it? Or the air force?" Crane wanted to know.
Takarada listened, and answered, "The call has been sent, but everything is out of range. They're stationed too far at the moment to fight it immediately."
Nelson crossed his arms and stated bluntly, "Then we'll do something about it ourselves. Chip, prepare the Flying Sub for immediate launch."
Morton paused, looking for dissention from Captain Crane, but Crane nodded agreement, albeit, reluctantly.
Crowds were running away, further inland as the reporter revealed that the Tokyo Marine History Institute had identified the newly-arrived monster as 'Jaggadon', a creature that was last seen out at sea by a fishing ship back in 1930, and had been thought to be long dead, due to no further sightings
"That's what my father saw!" Takarada gasped. "He was one of the fishermen that saw that thing!"
"The question is what can we do against a thing like that?" Crane wondered. "Remember; this Jaggadon monster was able to grab hold of the Flying Sub when those two criminals hijacked the ship, and nearly got us all killed."
"We won't be trying to kill it, Lee. We'd need everything aboard the Seaview to accomplish that task!"
"Sir?" Takarada interrupted, nodding at the TV screen. "The reporter has just said that that thing was first seen in 1904, and now he's telling the cameraman to point the camera back out to sea, and use the zoom lens."
"Zoom lens?" Crane repeated. "Why?"
They watched as larger and larger waves bashed the shoreline, coming in faster and harder, despite the fact that Jaggadon was hundreds of feet inland. Both the cameraman and the reporter cried out in recognition as a bumpy, moving object on the surface of the water began to increase in size, and become something huge, towering, and fully vertical.
"It's Godzilla!" Nelson gasped.
Godzilla had risen out of the sea, and was causing even more panic to the residents of Hitachi. Suddenly their peaceful day had turned into a doubly-horrifying nightmare, that all they could do was run like crazy and head for the hills, away from the two lumbering prehistoric monsters. Godzilla approached the marina, and looked about the damaged manmade facility, and beyond it, seeing a path of destruction consisting of small fires, shattered vehicles, and streams of water. Realizing what had caused the destruction, Godzilla followed it.
Takarada told everyone, "The reporter is saying that Godzilla was last seen almost five months ago when he battled the so-called 'Smog Monster', Hedorah. Until now, his location, meaning Godzilla's, was not known."
"We know it now!" Crane frowned.
"And we know more about Jaggadon than I care to, Lee," Nelson said, tapping his arm, and urging him towards the nose of the Seaview, and the hatch that would lead down into the Flying Sub. "Let's go. Until the Japanese military arrives, we're the only ones that can save the city of Hitachi."
"And how will we do that with something as small as the Flying Sub, Admiral?" Crane wondered bluntly.
"We don't need to hurt either one- we just need to act as a decoy and get them back in the water."
The King of the Monsters trudged deeper into Hitachi, following the trail of wreckage, crushing the corners of buildings and squashing cars as he went on his way, his reptilian focus on tracking down the beast from the bottom of the sea. Reaching an intersection filled with crunched cars and a caved-in store, Godzilla inadvertently stepped on a green car-sized spiked ball, and cried out in pain, stumbling as he did so. Not built so that even his arms could reach down to pull the spike-ball out from under the sole of his huge foot, Godzilla bellowed again, and shook one heavy leg, but the spike remained attached to it.
He shook his foot again, raised it, and was successful in scraping off the spike-ball against the roof of a small building, trampling it in the process. Godzilla growled and released an angry roar again, then limped in the same direction as the destruction, although he looked down more often this time, to keep clear of any more booby-traps.
The Flying Sub was launched with Crane and Nelson aboard, gracefully dropping out of the bottom hatch at the front of the submarine, until it cleared the mother ship, then poured on the speed, ascending more rapidly than any other submarine was capable of doing. Maintaining a communications link with the Morton on the Seaview, the First Officer was tasked with giving them directional reports and city damage reports and hopefully Godzilla and Jaggadon's locations via the live TV broadcast. The sleek yellow craft burst from the surface of the water, and was airborne seconds later, twisting in mid-air as Nelson, who was piloting, got his bearings and sped off towards land.
"Who do we go after first?" Crane asked.
"Godzilla. He's still closer to the sea, and from what I've read, he's much more dangerous than Jaggadon. We've also beaten Jaggadon in the past, so we'll deal with him later."
The Flying Sub found the giant reptile quickly, prompting Nelson to lower his speed enough to circle around the monster once. However, they got too close to Godzilla, distracting him from his intended target, and paid for it by being on the wrong end of a warning shot of highly-concentrated radioactive flame, courtesy of Godzilla's firey breath. Nelson was forced to veer away quickly from it, swinging the Flying Sub at an awkward 90 degree angle, back towards the sea. Godzilla roared at the yellow and black nuisance, and continued onward with a slight limp, crushing cars, buses, and homes along the way, even as Nelson righted the ship and looked at Crane, who was just as pale as he was.
"Or not," Nelson smirked, sheepishly. He turned the craft around and headed back to the city- but in a wide arc to avoid the massive super-monster. "Jaggadon seems like a pretty fair first choice."
Crane smiled back, but his blood pressure was still through the roof. "I guess so!"
At that very moment their intended target, Jaggadon, was deep inside the city, and was gradually approaching a hospital, still filled with panicking people despite the semi-controlled evacuation of the surrounding area. Raging ambulances created a cacophony of noise with their loudly blaring, mingling sirens, as people ran in every direction. The giant seaweed creature watched the ting animals running every which way, and seemed to be considering if it should try to eat these new little morsels.
Lumbering into the street, Jaggadon crushed the side of a small building across the street, causing the rest of the structure to collapse, making the terrified crowds believe that the hospital was next. The seaweed beast crushed trees and a delivery truck beneath its feet as it forced its way into a narrow road, it's giant bulbous orange eyes blazing with fury, raising its shaggy seaweed-covered arms to crush the hospital.
Suddenly, there was a bright flash when it was hit in the side by an atomic ray out of view of the panicked masses. It cried out in pain as its seaweed flesh sizzled and caught fire momentarily, even as it collapsed backwards, falling onto the parking lot across the street, flattening dozens of cars in the process, shattering the concrete lot as it created a teeth-chattering BOOOOOMMMM!
Godzilla had arrived on the scene, angrily stomping directly towards Jaggadon, which was slowly climbing to its feet, smoke trailing off of his burnt side. Picking up Jaggadon, he violently shoved the sea monster backwards away from the buildings, making it stagger backwards and fall on its back in an adjoining park. Godzilla spun around and growled at the Flying Sub, which was circling the two combatants, but didn't attack it this time. Godzilla turned back around to face his shaggy opponent, only to be smashed in the face by a wild seaweed-covered arm. Godzilla staggered and waited a few seconds as Jaggdon became upright, until the great lizard's mighty tail swung around with the force of a hurricane and bludgeoned Jaggadon left side, knocking him backwards into the air for a couple seconds before he landed on the ground with an ear-shattering, earthquake-like, KAA-SHOOOOMMM!
Jaggadon rolled side to side, roaring in outrage, as he tried to recover his leverage and get back to his feet even as Godzilla approached with revenge in his eyes. However, the seaweed beast surprised The Big G by firing a trio of his spiked balls at his enemy from a hidden mouth, which painfully stuck to Godzilla's tail and right thigh. Godzilla bellowed from the sudden pain and tried to pull the spiked ball from his thigh, but it stabbed his paw with equally sharp thorny spikes.
Aboard the Flying Sub, Nelson and Crane listened to the relayed TV reporter transmission, which Takarada translated as, "He's wondering who's inside the small yellow craft, where it came from, and what they could possibly do to help."
Admiral Nelson admitted to Crane, "I'm beginning to wonder the same thing. We'll have to keep our eyes open for our first opportunity to get involved. In the meantime..."
"In the meantime, we stay out of their reach," Crane finished.
As they looked on from the viewports of the circling ship, the Seaview officers saw Jaggadon rise to its shaggy feet, and take the attack directly to Godzilla, shoving the giant lizard to his side, and into an adjoining street, causing him to collapse on top of a park side stadium. Godzilla roared in anger, and got to his feet, narrowly missing a pair of spiked balls fired from Jaggadon. Suddenly, Godzilla and Jaggadon were body to body in a violent tussle, trading massive blows that could smash ocean liners into two.
Jaggadon screamed in Godzilla's face, his orange eyes seemingly lighting up even brighter with the rage of hatred, to which Godzilla responded by thrusting the shaggy beast backward, then head-butting the undersea creature in what passed for its face, making it stumble backwards.
The undersea thing steadied itself, then unexpectedly spewed a purple mist at Godzilla, which confused the giant protector of Japan for a few seconds, then with a contemptuous roar, Godzilla approached, waving his claws at the mist like it was harmless smoke. However, the mist was more than a diversion, as the Big G released a wail of in pain when the purple mist began to burn his chest, neck, and face. He gagged and tried to catch his breath as the noxious fumes got into his eyes, blurring his vision.
Jaggadon saw his chance and tackled Godzilla again, pounding his adversary into the wreckage of nearby buildings again, the steel girders and crushed structure dug into Godzilla's hide, even as the purple mist sent fiery waves of pain across it at the same time. Godzilla struggled to get up and respond to Jaggadon's attack, but the seaweed monster kicked the defender of Japan while he was down, kicking Godzilla back into the ground every time he tried to get up. Getting angrier by the second, Godzilla fired his radioactive breath blindly, hoping to catch the seaweed monster.
Jaggadon felt the sting of the atomic breath against one arm, and wailed in pain as it sizzled and was enflamed for several seconds, backing off, even as he laid out a trap for his opponent, releasing four of his dangerous green spiked balls in front of Godzilla. He backed off and roared at the valiant monster, that was finally able to get back to his huge feet. The blurry-eyed Godzilla looked about, and found Jaggadon waving his shaggy seaweed arms at him to get his attention, receiving another roaring insult for his trouble, taunting him, daring him to attack. Godzilla gritted his teeth, and took the bait, stepping forward towards his opponent, only to instantly feel the souls of his feet punctured by the spiked balls that he hadn't noticed were lying in wait in the parking lot and street.
Godzilla's animalistic mind went into a frenzy from the pain, as he struggled to scrap off the spikes, but only succeeded in stepping on them, forcing the spikes deeper into his raw flesh. Jaggadon saw his opening, seeing his enemy in distress, and stomped forward until he was close enough to launch a new attack. With Godzilla keeled over roaring in outrage, the seaweed monster prepared to spew out another blast of purple mist at point-blank range, when he felt a concentrated beam of fire that felt like it went straight through his seaweed covering, through his thick, nearly impenetrable hide beneath, and his soft internal organs.
"Direct hit!" Crane exclaimed, grinning widely, as he felt Nelson bring the Flying Sub into a sudden power-climb.
"Good shooting, Lee!" Nelson said, pulling back on the throttles on his chair, and levelling the craft out, high above the two battling monsters. "A couple more shots like that from the laser and we'll trick Jaggadon into coming after us and back into the sea where he belongs!"
"And look! We've got company!"
Jaggadon waved his shaggy arms at the yellow pest that dared to fire a high-power laser beam at him and hurt him, that as he turned around to watch the little ship ascend and fly behind him, he wasn't ready when he came under fire from behind by a squadron of jets belonging to the Japanese Air Force. His seaweed hide flared up in multiple locations as it was enveloped by exploding missiles and machine gun fire, but showed no signs of being hurt- just angered.
The squadron of six fighters turned around as one, to start another run against the giant invader, keeping an eye on the random element- the Flying Sub, which flew straight for the monster from the sea, only to pull away without firing a second shot. It drew Jaggadon's attention again, allowing another barrage of firepower from the jets to smash and explode against his seaweed hide. The monster roared a rebuttal, but kept its monstrous focus on the tiny enemies, so that it timed it perfectly to spew out trails of purple mist that splattered and stuck onto the metallic surfaces of the jet squadron.
The pilots noticed that their fighter craft were in trouble immediately, as their controls went haywire, or their entire canopy was covered in purple goo, blinding them. The toxic chemical began to eat away at the metal and glass of the jets, forcing the pilots to eject from every fighter in the air, leaving the Flying Sub as the sole airborne attacker, once more. Jaggadon fired out a stream of his poison at the speeding little ship, but Nelson's reflexes twisted the Flying Sub away in time before it was hit, which would prove to be bad luck for the giant monster.
With his back turned again, Jaggadon didn't notice Godzilla's dorsal spines light up with pale blue electricity, followed by a powerful blast of his atomic ray that blasted the seaweed monster from behind, sizzling his seaweed exterior. Godzilla pressed the attack, and got in close again to punch and pound the sea monster, getting him down onto the ground, causing a tremor that could be felt for miles.
Nelson watched this, and told Crane, "If recent history is any indication, I think it's just possible that Godzilla is actually trying o protect the city, as ludicrous as that might sound. I mean, what benefit in it is there for him?"
Crane shook his head in the co-pilot seat and suggested, "Maybe we're reading too much into this? Maybe they've tangled before and this is just another in a long series of battles between the two of them? Look at them go- they're fighting like cats and dogs and that's basically instinctual and not personal."
"Well, given the choice, I think we'd be doing the city a favour by helping their famous monster champion," Nelson said.
Jaggadon tried to shoot out more of his purple mist at Godzilla, but his aim was off when Godzilla spun around and began to lay a beat down on the seaweed monster with his powerful dinosaur tail. Any person listening from nearby could swear that the cloudy day was developing into a thunderstorm, if the tremendous 'BOOOMMM!'s were any indication, but they'd be wrong. Using the same method he'd used on King Kong, Godzilla leaned forward, raised and 130-foot long tail high, and sent it crashing down with all his force again and again, bashing the seaweed monster into the ground.
Jaggadon's roars became less and less forceful, and his raised arms became battered and bruised, unable to stop the powerful impacts from smashing him over and over, taking a direct hit in one of his huge orange eye balls, bruising it and reducing some of the eerie orange glow from within it. The hits brought Jaggadon to the edge of unconsciousness, his monster brain incapable of focusing, and his monster determination begin to evaporate. Godzilla roared in victory, sensing that Jaggadon was nearly finished.
But never count out a creature that thrived in the deep seas where water was plentiful...
...or on land on the day that the skies might just open up.
As if to give the sea monster a fighting chance, the sky began to fill with rain drops and was soon releasing a heavy downfall, splattering across the seaweed surface of the thing called Jaggadon, while Godzilla smashed him a couple more times with his tail. Nelson and Crane watched with rising anxiety as the glowing eyeballs seemed to fill with nuclear energy of their own, signalling an increase in power within Jaggadon. Godzilla turned around, expecting to find his enemy squashed flat into the ground, barely conscious or even dead, but was in for a surprise!
Jaggadon quickly climbed to his feet, and threw himself at Godzilla, who tripped backwards over a small building and had trouble righting himself as Jaggadon confidently thrashed Godzilla. Dazed from the attack, Godzilla' felt Jaggadon's paws clutch his snout and jaw, and hold them tightly together so that his atomic ray couldn't be fired from his mouth. Intending to burn the giant lizard's eyes with his poisonous toxin, Jaggadon revelled in his imminent victory, until the Flying Sub once more came into play.
Dive bombing the seaweed monster, Nelson timed it perfectly as he fired two torpedoes into Jaggadon's maw, the explosive missiles simply released like a pair of bombs. They exploded with a brilliant pair of flashes, inflicting enough destruction against the Seaview's monstrous nemesis, that the injured Jaggadon was angered enough to forget about Godzilla and chase the retreating Flying Sub back towards the sea.
"Another strafing run coming up, Admiral? This time with the laser, again?" Crane wanted to know, but the old sea dog shook his head.
"We've gotten lucky with the Flying Sub, but what I really want is to use the Seaview's firepower against it, and to do that it must be lured all the way back into the sea."
Crane looked outside the windshield that was being pelted by the rain and said, "That might be easier than we think! Look!"
An angry Godzilla was stomping towards Jaggadon, and blasted him in the back with his fiery fury once, twice, three times. The seaweed beast spun around, intending to fight, but received a devastating punch in the eye for his trouble. Godzilla whacked him backwards, forcing the seaweed monster back the way he came. Godzilla gave chase, as the sky continued to rain down on both giant monsters, snuffing out small fires as quickly as the two giant monsters created them.
Crane's eyes lit up with concern. "Admiral, if rain water made Jaggadon strong again, won't being under the sea in his own element make that monstrosity invincible? Even against Godzilla?"
Nelson shook his head. "We can't worry about that. And beside it'll be two against one with Godzilla and Seaview fighting that devil!"
Godzilla had maneuvered Jaggadon back to the shore as expected, kicking him and punching him as the two of them re-entered the water with another smash from his tail, causing the water in the marina to rise up and reach the damaged docks and capsize half of the boats lined up there. Godzilla tackled the disoriented Jaggadon into the deeper water, and with a mighty yank, flung the sea weed monster over his hip and into deeper water, which was high enough to reach up to his arm pits.
Jaggadon released a cacophony of roars and waved his arms threateningly at the Big G, allowing himself to turn around and sink beneath the surface of the water, seemingly giving up. However, the sea was Jaggadon's natural environment, and there was no telling how much more powerful he'd be in an undersea battle. Godzilla dove head first under the sea, and was joined moments later by the Flying Sub, both of which wanted to be sure that their enemy was leaving. Unfortunately, they'd was mistaken, as Jaggadon seemed to be holding his position, waiting for them, not yet ready to leave. It left Godzilla no alternative but to reward the beast's stubborness with another blast of his radioactive breath, which slammed into the monster and boiled the water that it travelled through. It was a direct hit, but the impact seemed to be somewhat less effective this time, rather than on land, perhaps because the sea made Jaggadon stronger.
"Incredible! For all the punishment it's taken...Jaggadon doesn't even seem to be weakening!" Crane moaned.
"Can you blame him? That fire breath probably only hurts momentarily with the water dulling it!" Nelson surmised. "And we already know how much trouble we had fighting that thing ourselves beneath the sea!"
Nelson had an idea as he felt he had to take matters into his own hands, and contacted the submarine. "Chip, I want you to have the reactor room charge the Seaview's hull to maximum output, using the ship's reactors to electrify the hull. Standby on the forward laser, too. Let me know when you're within range of us."
"Aye, aye, Admiral."
Jaggadon and Godzilla were back to trading blows again, almost in slow motion because of water resistance, clawing at each other, both trying to get the upper hand in what may have been a millennia-long rivalry. Seemingly getting stronger because he was in his watery natural environment, Jaggadon pounded Godzilla in the neck, knocking him down onto an undersea mountain, making him stagger and fall against a crumbling collection of rocks to the sandy bottom of the sea, his arms and legs waving wildly. Releasing a pair of spiked balls at his reptilian adversary, Godzilla batted them away more by luck than skill, as he tried to get back onto his feet, making them fall harmlessly down to the seabed.
Approaching the giant monster with a gurgling growl of superiority, Jaggadon was suddenly aware of light source off to his right side that was getting brighter. He turned about to get a better look, and was rewarded with the surprising sight of the Seaview's forward search light in his face, before it rammed him! Seconds later as Jaggadon staggered to remain upright, energy was sent through the hull and sent coruscating throughout the giant seaweed monster's entire body! It roared in defiance and pain, and was rewarded with a second, longer charge that spread everywhere along his seaweedy body, up and down and impossible to stop. The beast flailed its shaggy arms and caught the curved forward fin of the submarine, knocking it at an angle and sending the crew within off to one side, as they struggled to remain upright, their controls bursting into flames as alarms rang out. Outside, Jaggadon steadied himself, and recognizing an old enemy in the form of the blue submarine, it roared out a challenge and raised its heavy arms to smash the vessel...
...Until it was grabbed by the seaweed strands all over its back, and yanked backwards with the force of an angry tornado. Godzilla had grabbed the monster before it could reach the damaged sub, and threw Jaggadon backwards and up and over an outcropping of rocks, flipping him end over and with his feet up towards the surface. Jaggadon landed with a thundering, muffled BAH-VOOOOMMMM! amidst a cloud of watery, sandy debris. Morton immediately ordered his helmsmen to back up in a hurry, sending the Seaview edging in reverse to give the great lizard a chance to rise to the challenge once more.
Jaggadon rose and turned back towards the direction of Hitachi, but was hit from behind by a slam of Godzilla's tail, knocking him face first into the floor of the sea. Godzilla leapt up, almost in slow motion due to water resistance and tackled the seaweed monster, sending both of them deeper into the ocean floor. Water resistance muted his blows, but Godzilla put all of his might into his blows, pounding Jaggadon him from behind, then paused as he had an idea. Jaggadon roared in defiance and paid for it when Godzilla, the King of the Monsters, grasped one of the huge orange eyeballs of the seaweed monster, and squeezed it with all his might. Moments later, Godzilla had crushed it in his claws.
The seaweed monster wailed in pain, and rolled Godzilla off of him, struggling to get back to his feet and away from his all-powerful enemy, gallons of seaweed monster goo trailing out from the destroyed eyeball socket. Backing off, Godzilla watched as Jaggadon stumbled towards an underwater mountainside, and blasted the mountain with his atomic breath, blowing it up into huge chunks as it exploded, and partially buried the weakened Jaggadon with it. As the debris settled it was obvious that Jaggadon was struggling to get back to his shaggy feet, but his head and shoulders were hovering over a huge gap.
Nelson piloted the Flying Sub overhead, his eyes glued to his sonar screen, and what he saw made his heart race even faster. "It's a pit! Jaggadon is poised on the edge of a precipice! We've got to knock him down into it!"
The Admiral contacted the Seaview and had Morton load two torpedoes, just out of Godzilla's range, who watched his enemy roll back and forth, growling and bellowing as he failed to gain enough leverage to stand up. Godzilla roared understanding, the sound muted by the deep water, but not his revelation. He watched in interest as Seaview lent a hand, firing the two powerful torpedoes at the howling sea monster, which exploded even more of the ledge beneath Jaggadon. No movement from the seaweed monster could save himself, as the detonation caused the seabed to cave in beneath him, causing him to flail his shaggy arms again, one catching the very edge of an outcropping.
The sand and smoke began to settle, and propped up at awkward angle, the sea beast released one more booming roar, before Godzilla's dorsal spines glowed blue, and a powerful stream of atomic breath hit its target- the monster and the outcropping. The creature released its hold from the rock because of the intense heat, and then it, too, burst into mere pebbles and dust, forcing the upper body weight of the seaweed monster to pull it downwards.
Gravity did the rest.
Jaggadon bellowed outrage once more as the edge of the pit finally gave way, and the vicious seaweed beast fell into it, falling who knew how far down in an opening that was just big enough to fit its massive girth. The Flying Sub made one more quick pass over the pitch black opening, but the quick blip on Nelson's sonar screen proved inconclusive as to how far Jaggadon had fallen, but it appeared deep enough to quite possibly trap the monster within it.
Godzilla slowly turned around and stared down the Seaview, which seemed to be a one-eyed sea creature in of itself. Godzilla bared his teeth, but did nothing more than appear to say, 'Do you want a piece of me, too?'.
Nelson quickly ordered Seaview, "Chip! Slowly back away and take no provocative action! And shut off the forward search light now!"
Chip Morton accepted the order with obvious relief, and guided Seaview away from the gigantic monster, first reversing direction, then turning her around 180 degrees and away from the Big G. Godzilla, seeing that the battle was finally over and that he had won, took a few steps away from the retreating submarine, then used his mighty tail to propel him through the sea, swimming away from the underwater battlefield and back out into the open sea.
Hours later the amazing submarine was poised over the wreckage of the ill-fated S. , retrieving what they could from the deadly attack. The undersea battlefield had returned to a place of tranquil peace and beauty, the sea life returning to their environment, which was finally free of radioactive reptile and seaweed monstrosity alike. A small seismic probe hummed quietly near the edge of the pit, registering zero underground activity, and thus confirming, at least for now, that Jaggadon was eliminated as a threat.
Crane found the Admiral standing before the huge forward windows of the Seaview, watching his divers pick over the remains of his former research ship, and gratefully accepted the cup of coffee the Captain offered him.
"What a day."
"Par for the course, as far as this ship is concerned," Nelson said.
"This was a slightly crowded one as far as incidents, as far as I'm concerned. Started out searching for a research ship, found it, came under attack by a Russian sub and a seaweed monster from our past, and had to deal with a sea serpent and a 50 million year old big, green radioactive monster from your past, and then we had to help that thing defeat the seaweed thing, and could just as easily been burned to a crisp by that monster's radioactive ray. I feel like calling my brother and asking, 'So how was your day?!'"
Nelson chuckled softly, then became serious as he mused thoughtfully, "Now we know for sure that the S. , the Zhdanov-Star, and the Russian sub were all destroyed by Jaggadon, and we've encountered Jaggadon in the past in several locations ourselves. We electrocuted it the first time...and it survived. We fired missiles at it at point-blank range, and hit it with Seaview's laser twice...and it survived. It went toe-to-toe with Godzilla and almost won. At least, as far as we know, there's just this one monster. But I can't help wondering...was this the same one from all those encounters before, or are there more of them out there?
Lurking...waiting...to rise out from the bottom of the sea?"
end.
A final note:
If you're curious to see what Jaggadon, the seaweed monster, looks like, you can see him in action in three episodes of 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea"; "The Condemned", "Deadly Creature Below", and " "Secrets of the Deep"