This was inspired by a video that ZillaMaster91 posted on YouTube a while back. I got inspired, and it fit this idea of mine perfectly, and finally I decided to actually do it after hearing the music again. Well, enjoy anyway. More than that, it's inspired by the poem "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost, which I first heard of in a comic.

Oh, and I highly recommend that you be playing the orchestral music "Requiem for a Tower" while reading this. It'll really add to it. There are about a hundred videos with it on YouTube.

Godzilla is © Toho

"Fire and Ice" is © Robert Frost

"Requiem for a Tower" is © Lux Aeterna (I think, though I could be wrong. Definitely not © me).


FIRE AND ICE

Some say the world will end in fire

The sky over Tokyo was cast a sickly orange, a burning glow that spread across the city and rendered the towering skyline in dark silhouette. The inferno, a ring of fire across the bay and out into the water on blazing oil, cut a swath through the city once thought so mighty like a hot knife through butter. From above, the darkened spread of the metropolis danced with flame.

Others say in ice

The unearthly sheen of the moon cut through the cloud and smoke, a fearful alien light pouring across the city as the thing descended. Suddenly, everything around it was cold, even the suddenly-dwindling flames. The creature stood, just slightly hunched, the wings that served in place of arms descending to waft the flames on freezing air as fanged jaws parted, and a mammalian form covered in blue-white fur leaned back on hoofed feet, its tusked maw beneath an apelike, bone-crowned cranium giving a whistling howl of challenge.

From what I've tasted of desire

Blocks away from where the creature had landed, terrified masses were still rallied through the streets by uniformed soldiers who looked up in quiet, fearful awe, shivering through their fatigues as the whole world suddenly took on such an unearthly cold. Among them, Miki Saegusa turned her almond eyes up toward the creature as it bellowed its defiance. Shiva, she knew, was the creature's name, the thing that had frozen Yokohama solid on its course to meet the other approaching combatant.

I hold with those who favour fire

The response to the challenge was deafening, an earth-shattering roar that spoke of rage and power and savagery, and that for just a moment, gave the young woman hope. He was here, as he so often was: their destroyer, their saviour. So many times the lesser of two evils, but here, just for a moment, she allowed herself to think that the charcoal-coloured colossus marching from the burning bay toward Shiva on powerful legs, water still cascading from his feline snout, muscular form, jagged dorsal fins and sinuous tail, was there as mankind's salvation. With a vicious snarl, Godzilla, King of the Monsters, approached his quarry.

But if it had to perish twice

For a long moment, the two behemoths stood, feral eyes narrowing as if sizing each other up: Godzilla, in the midst of a mass of burning wreckage, and Shiva, its surroundings already coating with ice. To Shiva, this scaly beast was just another obstacle to face in this new feeding ground. To Godzilla, this invader was just another overzealous enemy from the void of space, come to stake a claim to his world.

I think I've seen enough of hate

The monsters tensed, each rearing back ready to strike, and, each with a bellowing roar of hatred, they charged, the Earth thundering beneath them and the city shaking in place, and when they finally struck, the impact came with a thunder that shook the heavens.

To know that for destruction, ice

Everything was suddenly a whirlwind of ice, coiling in the air and streaming from Shiva's jaws even as Godzilla's claws sank into its flesh and tore at its fur. Its wings beat madly as Godzilla snarled through the wave of ice that coated his scales. The ice began to cover the nuclear leviathan as swiftly as the buildings around them, and as Godzilla struggled, Miki Saegusa watched and prayed.

Is also great, and would suffice

And then everything was silent. The air seemed to freeze as a hushed silence fell over all. What signs of the battle that Miki could see seemed to cease.

Then came the flash, the brilliant, blinding blue flash, and the crash of a falling titan, and then Shiva was on its back, Godzilla's clawed foot lashing out at its chest. Godzilla rose up, and there was suddenly the smell of ozone, like burning metal filling the air, and finally Shiva was consumed in fire, its savage howl as fruitless a whistle as a breeze in the heart of the sun, and for Shiva, the whole world burned.

With a whistling snarl, Shiva rose, and battle was joined again.


A few notes to be made:

-Rather than describing what was happening, I was going for establishing mood here and not having too much between the lines of the poem (hence it being pretty short). The idea is that two apocalyptic forces are colliding here, echoing the end of the world described in the poem. This is my first attempt at a story of that sort.

-Shiva is a kaiju of my own creation, whom I mainly put together because Godzilla needs a proper ice-based enemy; SpaceGodzilla, Krystalak and Kiryu don't really count. I tried to make Shiva contrast with Godzilla beyond their powers, by giving her (yup, Shiva is female) hooves, wings, fur, etc.

Since I won't be continuing this (the nature of it requires it to be a one-shot, really), I'll just go ahead and tell you that Godzilla wins. Who knows, maybe Shiva will return one day.

All Reviews Welcome!