The Clash of the Century:
ULTRAMAN vs. GODZILLA!
Or: THE RETURN OF ULTRAMAN!
by Kirk Hastings
(A sequel to the 1966 TV series "Ultraman", and the 1954 film "Gojira/Godzilla")
The weather had been extremely changeable the last few days on Odo Island, and as the sun began to set over the water off the little island the last few fishing boats from the day's work were being pulled up onto the beach for the night. The men hauling the boats, all from the single little fishing village on the small island, grumbled about the bad catch that day, and that it looked as if the next day might be even worse.
"It is the curse of Godzilla again," one of the fishermen remarked.
"Oh, father," said one of the younger men in an exasperated voice, "Godzilla was killed thirteen years ago in Tokyo Bay. You know that."
"I know nothing of the kind," the older man protested. "I know what they told us, but I do not believe it. Godzilla cannot be destroyed. He has lived since the beginning of time, and he will live on until its end. Nothing can kill him!"
The younger man shook his head. Better to say no more, than to get into an argument with his father that no one would win.
Once the boats were secure the men headed back to their huts for the night.
# # #
Later that night the young man woke up in his bed with a start. It was an hour or two before dawn, and the island was blanketed with that early morning stillness that was common just before the sun rose.
What had woken him up? He wasn't sure.
He settled back down in his bed again.
But moments later he sat up once more.
What was that? He thought he could hear a strange sound echoing off in the distance somewhere. It was just barely audible, and at first he wondered if he was only dreaming it.
But there it was again. A strange kind of bellowing sound that was like the crossing of a lion's roar with the mournful wail of a fog horn, coming from somewhere far away.
He vaguely remembered hearing a sound like that once before, when he was a very young child. It was a sound that he had said back then that he would never forget.
Could it be? Could it possibly be?
He continued to listen. The sound did not repeat itself again.
I must have been dreaming he said to himself. I couldn't have heard what I thought I heard.
He tried to go back to sleep, but found it very difficult to close his eyes again.
# # #
"Captain, there is a Priority One call on the line for you from the Secretary of the Defense Agency."
The speaker was Akiko Fuji, the Communications Officer of the Special Science Investigation Agency - otherwise known as the Science Patrol, whose headquarters was located just outside Tokyo.
The day had been quiet so far, as most days at Science Patrol headquarters were. Captain Mura was sitting at the Y-shaped counter just behind Fuji, drinking a cup of coffee and doing some paperwork. He, like Fuji, was dressed in his casual Science Patrol uniform, which consisted of tan trousers, a blue blazer, and a tan tie. He reached over for the telephone sitting nearby.
"Yes. This is Captain Mura," he announced, after picking up the receiver.
He listened to the person on the other end of the phone for a minute or two. Then he said, "I understand. We'll look into it." He hung the receiver up.
Fuji looked at him expectantly.
"Call Hayata, Arashi and Ito in here," Mura ordered. Fuji nodded. She turned back around to her communication board. Determining that each of the three men were in their individual private quarters in the building, she buzzed them on their intercoms, which told them that they needed to report to the Command Center right away.
Within minutes all three men entered the room. They were also all dressed in their casual uniforms.
"We've been asked to investigate a small fishing island in the Ogasawara Group, about 700 miles off the southern coast," Mura told them.
"Why? Has the fishing been bad?" Ito responded jokingly, with a bit of a smirk.
Mura looked at him. "As a matter of fact, yes. That, and no one has heard anything from the island for a week now."
"Nothing at all, Captain?" Hayata asked.
"Nothing. A weekly mail boat reported this morning that no one met them at the dock, and they couldn't find any sign of life on the island."
"Maybe they all went out fishing on the boats," Arashi suggested.
"No," Mura replied. "The boats were all still on the beach. Also, the mail people reported that some of the local huts appeared to have been wrecked."
"Wrecked?" Hayata said. "Could it have been a storm?"
"Perhaps. That's what we're going there to find out."
As they all got ready to leave, Fuji noticed that Hayata had sat down in a chair and was rubbing his forehead. He looked as if he wasn't feeling very well. She put her hand on his shoulder.
"Hayata, are you all right?" she asked.
Hayata looked up at her. "Yes, yes, I'm fine," he insisted.
Fuji knew that he wasn't telling the truth, but she also knew she wasn't going to get anything more out of him about it. She nodded politely, and then turned back to her console.
In fact, Hayata had not felt well since Ultraman had left the earth more than a month earlier. When Ultraman, an interstellar police officer, had originally come to earth in pursuit of the monster Bemular, his Travel Sphere had accidentally crashed into Hayata's jet. Hayata would have died if Ultraman had not merged his life force with that of the injured human. For more than a year afterward, Ultraman and Hayata had shared that life force – and, as a side benefit, whenever the services of Ultraman were needed, Hayata was able to use a device called the Beta Capsule to instantly transform himself into the giant from Nebula M78. But when it had became necessary for Ultraman to return to his home planet because the energy monitor on his chest had been damaged in a battle with the giant alien Zetton, Ultraman's superior, Zoffy, had come to Earth and separated Hayata and Ultraman, leaving Hayata with just enough life energy to keep him alive until Ultraman could return. But Hayata had been growing steadily weaker since Ultraman had left. He had tried to hide his increasing debility from his fellow Science Patrol members, but it was becoming harder and harder to do it convincingly.
He hoped that Ultraman would return soon, before he became too weak to hide his progressively worsening condition.
# # #
Within the hour all five Science Patrol members were dressed in their orange field uniforms and situated in their respective seats aboard the Patrol's main VTOL jet, which sat in the launch position inside its cavernous hanger. The platform the jet sat on began to rise as the huge ceiling of the hanger split open. Once the jet was out in the open air, level with the hanger's roof, Arashi, who was acting as the primary pilot, activated its vertical take-off rockets. The ship rose upward. Once it reached a certain height, the rear thrusters came into play, and the jet surged forward.
Everyone settled back in their seats for the long ride to Odo Island. Ito pulled out a technical manual, which he began to study. Captain Mura and Fuji stared out of the cockpit windows at the ocean far below them. Hayata leaned back against his seat's headrest and closed his eyes, taking the opportunity to rest.
The 4-hour trip to Odo Island was uneventful. Once there, Arashi activated the VTOL's vertical landing jets, and the silver-and-red craft settled down onto a relatively level area a short distance inland, just off the beach.
One at a time the Science Patrol members disembarked out of the hatch. They looked around.
The island appeared just as it had been described to them. Most or all of the fishing boats appeared to be still sitting on the beach. There was no sign of any life about, not even a stray dog. Curiously, some of the huts located back off the beach appeared to have caved in.
"Fan out. Look around," Mura instructed. The Patrol members separated in different directions, looking for clues. Mura and Hayata headed for one of the collapsed huts, to give it a closer inspection.
"What do you think?" Mura asked, as he stood next to the smashed hut.
"I don't know," Hayata replied. "It almost looks as if something massive and heavy crushed the roof in."
"But what?"
Hayata had an idea based on Science Patrol records of the area (which he had quickly consulted before leaving headquarters), but at the moment he decided to say nothing.
"Captain!" Arashi shouted from the beach.
Mura turned. Arashi was waving that he wanted Mura to see something.
Mura and Hayata trudged down to the edge of the surf where Arashi and Ito stood. Fuji came running from another direction.
"Look!" Arashi said, when everyone had gathered around him. He pointed down at the wet sand.
There was a gigantic, three-toed footprint still visible at the surf line that had not yet been washed away by the tide.
Now Hayata had a pretty good idea what could have crushed in those huts.
# # #
The next morning, a hurried press conference for Japan's media was held in the auditorium of the Scientific Technical Center, located just outside Tokyo. The five Science Patrol members sat at a long table in the front of the room, equipped with microphones. Professor Iwamoto, a close friend of the Science Patrol and the head of the Science Center, sat next to them. Momentarily he stood up from his seat and began to address the crowd.
"Most of you know that there has been no communication with the small fishing village on Odo Island for a week now," Iwamoto began. "Yesterday, these five senior members of the Science Patrol" – he indicated the five uniformed people sitting beside him – "went to that island to find out why. What they found is the reason for this press conference."
Iwamoto sat down. As he did, Captain Mura stood up.
"First, some background," he began. "You may remember that, thirteen years ago, the monster Godzilla first appeared at Odo Island. After devastating much of downtown Tokyo, he was finally destroyed by a special bomb invented by Dr. Daisuke Serizawa, that was detonated at the bottom of Tokyo Bay while Godzilla was resting there."
"We remember that," one reporter piped up. "Everyone does. But what has this got to do with Odo Island today?"
Mura looked as if he was reluctant to answer that question. But finally he continued.
"While scouting that island yesterday, we found no sign of life there. We also found a number of crushed-in huts. Further inspection of the area turned up a huge footprint in the surf."
There was a collective gasp from the audience.
"That footprint exactly matched that of Godzilla," Mura finished.
"But how is that possible?" another reporter interrupted. "Godzilla was destroyed in Tokyo Bay by Serizawa's Oxygen Destroyer years ago!"
At this question Mura looked at Iwamoto. Iwamoto stood up.
"We believe that we may now be dealing with another Godzilla," Iwamoto explained. "After all, where there is one living creature, there are usually others. We may now be dealing with one of the original Godzilla's parents. Or a sibling."
"If that is so, could this new Godzilla also be radioactive, like the original?" a third reporter asked.
"Possibly," Iwamoto answered. "This new creature may have endured the same radioactive exposure from H-bomb testing in the Pacific that the original did. Since the enormous size of the footprint that the Science Patrol found is roughly equal to the size of the original Godzilla's footprint, I would say that the possibility of this creature having been adversely affected by radiation as well is probably extremely good."
At that statement the reporters jumped up from their chairs and began to rush from the room, in order to find telephones so that they could call their offices with the startling news.
"I hope we did the right thing, telling these reporters what we found," Mura said to Iwamoto. "This news, once it gets out, could ignite a panic among the populace."
"Maybe," Iwamoto replied. "But the people have to be warned. If another Godzilla does turn up again, we have to be ready for him."
Mura nodded.
# # #
Emiko Ogata was doing chores about her apartment with the television on, when a special announcement interrupted the regular programming. She didn't pay much attention to it, until she happened to hear the word "Godzilla" spoken.
She rushed into the living room. She was just in time to catch the final part of the special bulletin.
"... Thus, according to Prof. Iwamoto of the Scientific Technical Center, and Captain Mura of the Tokyo branch of the Science Patrol, it could be possible that another prehistoric beast of the same species as Godzilla may be lurking underwater somewhere in the area of the Ogasawara Island Group," the announcer droned. "All Japanese coastal authorities have been alerted to be on the lookout for anything suspicious, and the Japanese Navy is patrolling the area 24 hours a day. Civil Defense authorities caution everyone to remain calm, and to not panic, as the existence of such a creature has not as yet been positively verified. Yet they advise everyone to be vigilant. Stay tuned to this channel for further bulletins, which we will bring to you as soon as they become available."
Emiko's heart skipped a beat. She had seen the destruction firsthand that the original Godzilla had wrought on Tokyo years before. So had her father, Dr. Kyhei Yamane (a prominent archaeologist before his recent passing), and her husband, Hideto, a salvage captain.
In fact, right now Hideto was out on a salvage operation near one of the islands in the Ogasawara chain.
# # #
The sun was just about to dip below the horizon when Captain Ogata called a halt to the day's salvage operation. They had been anchored near the southern tip ofHaha-jima Island for two days now, salvaging the remains of an underwater shipwreck located there. With the impending nightfall the weather was turning rough, as the air temperature was dropping and the wind kicking up.
The crew retired inside to the ship's galley for dinner, except for a lone lookout left on deck. He shivered in the cold and pulled his coat up around his neck, trying to ward off the growing chill in the air.
He had only been on deck a few minutes before he noticed, some distance off the port bow, a strange glow deep in the water that was moving at a remarkably fast speed, accompanied by a gigantic wake on the surface. He stared at it, trying to figure out what could create a phenomenon like that. In his 20-odd years at sea he had never seen anything like it before.
And it was coming straight toward the ship.
Suddenly the sea off the port bow began to foam and bubble furiously, as if something huge was coming up to the surface. Then the lookout heard a strange cry that sounded like a lion's roar, mixed with the reverberating echo of a foghorn.
He only had time to scream once.
# # #
"Captain, I've just received a report from the Maritime Safety Agency concerning a missing salvage ship located off of Haha-jima Island."
Captain Mura looked over at Fuji, who was sitting at her communications console. "When did they lose contact with it?" he asked her.
"About 3 hours ago."
Mura looked at the clock on the wall. It was now almost 9 P.M.
"Call the others," he said reluctantly. "We can't afford to take any chances. We'll have to check it out."
Fuji did as she was instructed. Within minutes Hayata, Ito and Arashi appeared, dressed in their orange field uniforms. Mura quickly explained the situation to them.
"Fuji, this time you stay here to monitor communications," Mura told her. Fuji nodded.
"Let's go," Mura told the others. He put his radio helmet on and headed toward the door. Arashi and Ito followed him, picking up their own helmets. But Hayata did not move. Instead he leaned over onto the counter and hung his head downward.
Fuji noticed his strange behavior. "Hayata, what is it?" she asked him.
The others stopped short of the door panel and turned around. Just as they did they saw Hayata crumple to the floor in a heap. They rushed over to him.
But Fuji got there first. She stooped and lifted Hayata's head and shoulders off the floor, propping him against her bent leg.
"Hayata!" she said to him, concern in her voice. His eyes were closed, and he did not respond.
"Something's wrong with him!" Arashi said. "He's been acting strange the past few days, like he was coming down with something."
"Maybe it's the flu!" Ito suggested helpfully.
"We haven't time to figure out what's wrong with him now," Mura interjected. "Ito, call the medics up here and have them get Hayata down to Sick Bay. We'll have to go without him."
Ito went over to the communications console and made the call. After he had done so, Mura, Arashi and Ito went out, leaving Fuji to take care of Hayata until the medics arrived.
# # #
It was after 11 P.M. by the time the Science Patrol jet reached Haha-jima Island. Arashi landed the VTOL in an open field, and the three men proceeded over to the island's dock area. There were some sailors still milling around, and the Science Patrol members began to question them about the missing ship.
When they got back together and compared notes the Science Patrol men found that they had all been told the same thing: a giant creature had risen up out of the sea and, with his rending claws and fiery breath, had sunk the salvage ship with all hands aboard.
# # #
Shortly before midnight Fuji was sitting beside Hayata's bed in the Science Patrol Sick Bay. He had not stirred all evening, since collapsing earlier in the Command Center. The attending physicians could not determine what was wrong with him. All of his vital signs were weak, but otherwise they could find nothing physically wrong with him. They had decided that they would transfer Hayata to Tokyo Hospital in the morning, and call in some more experts to try to determine what was wrong with him. In the meantime, Fuji, greatly concerned, had not left his bedside. With Hayata gravely ill, Fuji was beginning to realize that she felt more for him then she had previously realized.
When the medics had removed Hayata from the Command Center, Fuji had called her younger brother Hoshino, an honorary member of the Science Patrol, in to headquarters so that he could monitor the Communications Board while Fuji sat with Hayata. At that precise moment, Hoshino noticed a Priority One message coming in to the board. He flipped the proper switch so that he could hear the message. After listening to it for a moment, he pulled up the antenna on the communicator pin attached to his lapel.
"Fuji! Come in Fuji!" he said into the device.
Fuji's communicator pin beeped, and she pulled up the antenna on it. "Yes, Hoshino - what is it?" she asked.
"Fuji, there's a Priority One message coming in from the Maritime Safety Agency," he relayed to her. "It says that just a few minutes ago lookouts at Nojimazaki Point at the entrance to Tokyo Bay spotted a gigantic wake heading into the bay. They don't know what's causing it, but they're afraid it could be Godzilla."
Fuji was momentarily stunned by this news, but the professional in her quickly took over. She forced herself to regain her composure. "Hoshino, I'll be right there," she replied. "In the meantime, notify Captain Mura about what you just told me."
"Right."
# # #
A few minutes later, on the eastern shore of Tokyo Bay just south of the town of Futtsu, spotters associated with the Maritime Safety Agency caught sight of the gigantic wake, headed up the bay. Directly west of Futtsu there was a little uninhabited island - which was actually not much more than a small sand bar - located out in the center of the bay. As the spotters watched from shore the water next to the little island began to boil furiously. Then, as they watched in horror, a huge reptilian head poked up out of the water.
"It's Godzilla!" one of them yelled.
As they continued to watch, mesmerized, the "new" Godzilla came up out of the water, all 50 meters and 20,000 tons of him. He lumbered up onto the island, then looked around, almost as if he was attempting to get his bearings. He looked up the bay and noticed the particularly bright lights of Tokyo. Then he crossed the island and slowly plodded back into the sea.
When his head had disappeared beneath the water again the spotters finally shook themselves out of their trance and raced for the nearest telephones in order to alert the authorities in Tokyo that Godzilla was definitely on the way.
# # #
After getting the radio message from Hoshino, Mura, Arashi and Ito were hurriedly on their way back to Tokyo. Arashi tried to pull every ounce of speed he could get out of the VTOL jet. They all knew that should Godzilla come ashore in a populated area before they could get back the potential destruction could be enormous. Only the advanced weaponry of the Science Patrol stood any kind of a chance of possibly turning Godzilla back.
And now they no longer had Ultraman to depend on.
# # #
The night crew was on duty at the large oil refinery located at the port of Kawasaki, just south of Tokyo, when the water at the mouth of the Tama River began to bubble furiously. As the oilmen working nearest the shoreline watched, a gigantic head suddenly rose up out of the foam.
Ancient anomaly and modern industry met each other as the colossal prehistoric beast known as Godzilla lurched up out of the bay and climbed onto the shore. His gigantic bulk towered over the huge oil tanks that surrounded him. Slowly he began to thunder forward, each ponderous step making the ground shake.
Within minutes the main office of the refinery was flooded with frantic calls from employees all over the installation reporting Godzilla's coming ashore. Those calls were immediately relayed to the local unit of the Japanese Self-Defense Force, which was already on high alert. A squadron of three surveillance helicopters immediately took to the air and headed for the refinery, as well as two fighter jets to escort them.
As they continued their hurried flight toward Tokyo, Captain Mura and the other Science Patrol members monitored the various military radio broadcasts that were being exchanged. At one point Mura picked up the microphone on the radio panel of the VTOL and cut in on one of the transmissions.
After identifying himself, Mura asked to speak directly to General Masami Shinzo, the JSDF commander for the Tokyo area.
"Under no circumstances should any of your jets attack - or even unnecessarily provoke - Godzilla while he is in the vicinity of the oil refinery!" Mura warned, once he had Shinzo on the line. "If he uses his atomic breath, it will ignite the oil tanks and cause a major disaster! Yokohama, Kawasaki, and even Tokyo itself could end up being burned to the ground!"
"I understand," Shinzo responded. "But what can we do? Godzilla is only a few miles away from a number of major population centers. There is no time to evacuate them. If Godzilla is not somehow stopped or turned back, he could kill thousands of people!"
Mura fully understood the general's frustration. He vividly remembered when the original Godzilla had devastated the Tokyo area once before, thirteen years earlier. He had been a young cadet with the Self Defense Force himself back then. "Try to hold off attacking as long as you can," he responded. "We will be there shortly."
"Captain, why do you think Godzilla is heading inland?" Arashi asked.
"I don't know. Perhaps he is searching for food," Mura replied. "Perhaps, in ancient times, the Japanese islands were his natural spawning ground. Or perhaps his animal instincts have been altered by his exposure to radiation, and he is just confused. It doesn't matter. We've got to stop him before he can reach downtown Tokyo."
Meanwhile, Godzilla found a large maintenance building in his path as he tried to make his way inland. Determined to proceed he threw his massive bulk against the 4-story building, causing it to collapse into a huge pile of rubble. Fortunately, the occupants of the structure had seen the giant coming, and had evacuated minutes before.
Now Godzilla came upon a relatively clear area of the refinery, an area that consisted of parking lots, an athletic field meant for the use of the refinery's employees on off hours, and some empty lots set aside for future construction. As he thundered across this area, the Science Patrol VTOL entered the refinery's air space.
"Ito, try the Mars 133 gun on him while he is in that clear area!" Mura ordered.
Ito nodded. He grabbed the special weapon from a storage bin under his seat and quickly set it up on a mount located on the dashboard of the VTOL. He stuck the end of the gun's barrel out of a small port in the ship's windshield made expressly for that purpose. As Arashi banked the VTOL low around Godzilla, Ito aimed and fired the weapon.
A beam of concentrated bluish-white light lanced out from the gun and hit Godzilla on the side of his neck. Unfortunately, it seemed to do little damage against his tough reptilian hide. The giant beast roared his anger at the offense. The jagged dorsal fins up and down his back began to glow ominously. Turning his head and opening his huge maw Godzilla shot a blast of his deadly radioactive breath at the VTOL.
Arashi expertly dodged the blast, swinging the VTOL up and around in a large arc. Coming out of the dive he headed back toward Godzilla.
"Captain, what is that?" Ito suddenly blurted.
Mura looked up in the direction Ito was indicating. A colossal red ball was slowly descending from the upper atmosphere above them. But the ball didn't look man-made; although it was spherical its surface was rough and irregular, like that of a large meteor or asteroid.
Godzilla saw it too. He directed another blast of his radioactive breath up at the object.
The radioactive fire struck the giant sphere, and suddenly there was a flash of light that lit up the entire refinery complex like it was broad daylight. There was a thunderous boom.
The gigantic red object had exploded!
Arashi, Mura and Ito found themselves momentarily blinded by the dazzling flash of light. Arashi fought to keep control of the VTOL, even though he couldn't see where he was going. When his eyes finally cleared, he realized that there was an enormous silver object right in front of the jet that filled the entire windshield!
He yanked the wheel with all his might, causing the jet to turn completely sideways and veer off sharply to the left.
When he was finally able to level the jet out and bring it back around again, the Science Patrol members were stunned by what they saw.
"It's Ultraman!" Ito cried.
Sure enough, the giant alien from Nebula M78 was just touching down on the ground a short distance in front of where Godzilla stood. Apparently he had just come from the exploded red ball - which, now that the Science Patrol members thought about it, closely resembled the same strange craft Ultraman had originally used to land on the Earth over Lake Ryuh-ga-Mori, near Saitama, over a year before.
At that very moment, in Tokyo Hospital, Hayata opened his eyes and sat up in his bed.
"Hayata!" gasped Fuji, who was sitting by his bedside.
Back at the refinery, Ultraman crouched, assuming a defensive pose. Godzilla had spotted him, and was now rapidly moving toward him. The two combatants were roughly the same height, somewhere around 50 meters tall. They both dwarfed the small buildings around them.
"Go Ultraman!" Ito shouted. "Get him!"
Godzilla roared his defiance of this newest enemy, and the two leviathans came together like a gigantic thundercloud. Ultraman grabbed Godzilla, and the two behemoths struggled back and forth. Finally Ultraman threw Godzilla forcefully to the ground. The resulting concussion caused the entire area to quake.
Godzilla roared in pain and anger. He whipped his long, gigantic tail around, and it struck Ultraman across his ankles. Losing his balance he fell to the ground, crushing a small storage shed beneath his tremendous weight as he did so.
This action gave Godzilla the opportunity to regain his feet. He turned and faced Ultraman, and his dorsal plates began to glow again.
Ultraman quickly got to his feet as well. Anticipating what was coming, he decided to employ his Rebound Ray, one of the many unique energy powers that his race had evolved over thousands of years. He traced a giant square in the air in front of him with his hands, and this instantly solidified into a shield of pure energy. When Godzilla let loose with his atomic breath, the radioactive blast struck the energy shield and immediately dissipated.
Its work done the shield faded. Immediately Ultraman crossed his wrists into a "T" formation. His main energy weapon, the Specium Ray, shot out from the outer edge of his vertical right hand. The powerful ray struck Godzilla square in the chest. There was a violent explosion.
Unfortunately, when the smoke cleared Godzilla was still standing. The beam had apparently failed to penetrate his hide, which had grown thick and strong from thousands of years of virtually unchecked growth, and the effects of atomic radiation.
Ultraman froze for a moment, stunned that his signature weapon had not succeeded in destroying Godzilla.
Taking advantage of his foe's momentary hesitation, Godzilla opened his maw and spit out another blast of atomic fire at Ultraman.
This time Ultraman leaped aside just in time, and the blast shot by him, missing its target.
Regaining his footing, Ultraman made the decision to employ his Ultra Attack Ray. Because this maneuver drained almost all of the energy from his body, he rarely used it except in extreme emergencies. He had come to the conclusion that his current predicament now qualified as such.
He clenched both his fists and pulled them back so that his wrists were tight against either side of his waist. This move caused almost all of the raw energy of his huge body to concentrate in both his fists. This energy was so powerful that it began to leap back and forth between his fists, looking like a sizzling greenish electrical charge.
Once this charge had built up to peak level, Ultraman thrust out his right fist, aiming it directly at Godzilla. The energy coming from his body now formed a thin, tightly focused beam that circled around and around his arm and shot out directly toward the prehistoric beast.
This beam struck Godzilla. The giant lizard shook violently as the ray beam pummeled him.
The next second he froze in position. Then his entire body exploded, literally blown to bits by the incredibly potent energy that had struck him.
"He did it! Ultraman won!" Ito shouted gleefully.
The Ultra Attack Ray had done its job so well there was little of Godzilla left to even clean up. Ultraman put his fists on his hips and studied the area as the energy monitor on his chest began to blink. His body's energy level was now running dangerously low.
He raised his face to the night sky, and then leaped straight up into the air. He flew upward until he was lost to sight.
It always amazes me that something that big can fly through the air like that Mura thought, as Arashi and Ito kept clapping each other on the back at Ultraman's victory.
# # #
Later that evening the Science Patrol members went to see Hayata at the hospital. They found him wide awake in his room, sitting up in bed and chattering away with Fuji like he had never been sick.
"You're certainly looking well," Mura commented.
"I've never felt better," Hayata replied, smiling.
"But what was wrong with you?" Arashi questioned. "At one point you looked like you were going to leave us."
"The doctors don't know," Fuji answered. "They were never able to identify exactly what was weakening him. But now they say he is perfectly all right. They will be releasing him in the morning."
"With a clean bill of health, I might add!" Hayata announced.
They all congratulated Hayata on his near-miraculous recovery from his mysterious illness.
"You will also be glad to know that Ultraman is back!" Ito told him.
"I know," Hayata replied. "I know."
THE END