December 15, 1984
White. Shin Gojira remembered lots of white.
The ceiling and the lights, the floor, and the four walls of its birthplace.
But the first thing he saw was a wizened, kindly face staring at him from behind the walls of his tank. The man had spoken to him. Shin didn't understand the words, but he rather liked the soothing, pleasant baritone sound.
Shin remembered lots of white clad humans, who walked around its tank. They had cheered the day Shin had opened his eyes. First and foremost, it remembered the kind man.
The man had spoken, although Shin did not understand the words. The sentiment behind them, however, Shin understood clearly.
The human liked him.
In the many days since that first day, Shin The kind man had fed and cared for it for as long as it could remember. He had provided food, spoken to it in soothing tones, always speaking to him. Though Shin couldn't leave his aquatic tank, he remembered that kindness.
But then, they came. Shin shivered at the memories.
Men and women in green suits, who spoke harshly to the kind man. It remembered shouts, loud bangs, and suddenly, all had been chaos.
The nice people that had cared for Shin for so long were lined up against a wall. After a series of loud bangs, they all hit the ground. Shin had squeaked in alarm inside his tank, but he had been powerless to do anything. The room, the place of Shin's birth, had been systematically torn apart, ransacked by the green-clad humans with their strange symbol. A human skull, with a multitude of tentacles extending from it.
But the green clad humans had overlooked something. The kind man had escaped, taking the creature's tank with him. He had loaded it onto this strange thing-a boat, Shin heard, and escaped.
2
The civilian registered boat accelerated through the waves. Professor Goro Maki spoke to it in soft, reassuring tones. "Do not fear, Shin. We will soon reach my homeland of Japan. We will be safer there. I have a friend I can contact, one who I know will be of great help to us."
Shin fixed its bulbous eyes on its creator and blinked. He didn't quite understand the words, but the even, measured tones were pleasing to listen to. Shin liked the kind man for that.
Abruptly, Shin sensed something...off. Something was wrong.
An odd instinct, something that made Shin's reptilian skin crawl. He sped up in his tank, tail lashing in irritation, aggravated.
Goro Maki blinked in confusion. "What's wrong-"
He got no further-the rocket that had been fired struck home. The back of the boat was torn apart in a fireball, Maki nearly being thrown out of his chair from the impact. Shin's tank rocked in its seat, nearly being thrown to the floor from the force as the engine ground to a halt.
Maki dragged himself upright, ignoring the pain in his side. A half dozen other speedboats, some of whom were emblazoned with a familiar hideous skull-and-tentacle symbol, were gaining on him. He could see one in particular, ahead of the group, with a man holding a spent rocket launcher.
Another man, this one with only one arm and a garish purple and blue costume, stood at the prow of the vessel. He wore a hood, and his missing arm had been replaced by a wicked looking scythe.
Goro inhaled sharply. Hydra had finally caught up to him.
He didn't have much time. Ignoring the pain in his side, he dragged himself to Shin's tank.
"Shin...I am sorry. I wish I could do more for you."
The tiny creature in the tank swam forward, pressing itself against the glass barrier.
Goro Maki continued.
"The kindest thing I could do would be to put us both out of our misery, wouldn't it?"
Goro knew what he had done to make Shin Gojira. While he and his team
He could hear Hydra's servants approaching even now, the boats growing closer.
He had only one option…
Goro Maki reached for the lid on the tank, and slowly started to lift it off.
"We're only going to ask you one more time. Where is it?"
In response, the badly injured Japanese man glared back at the green-suited tyrant and spat at him. Maki could see the rage in the man's eyes building as Baron Strucker gestured sharply. The Grim Reaper lashed out with the flat of his scythe.
Even so, the strike from the flat of the scythe knocked Goro Maki to the ground. The Hydra soldiers dragged him back upright, restraining him easily.
The bald man pulled a small cloth from his breast pocket, fastidiously wiping the mixture of blood and saliva from his cheek. "Now that was rude. Maki, seriously, it does not have to be this way. Just tell us where you hid Project G, and you can come back. The overseers will let this little defiance go, and we can all go back about our business."
Coughing, Maki scoffed. "Do you take me for a fool? I know exactly who you are, little man. I know exactly what you would use my creation for, and I care not for your petty ambitions."
Baron Strucker nodded to the two Hydra men restraining Maki, who set about beating the man with nightsticks. Strucker, arms folded behind his back, continued speaking in the tone of one who is talking about the weather. "Honestly, Professor, this acrimony is pointless. We both know you have no love for America."
The beating finished, leaving Maki gasping for air, wheezing as he struggled to remain conscious. The pain was excruciating.
"This cannot be about your homeland, not after what happened to your wife. Were you not the one who came to us begging for a chance at revenge for your poor Sakura?"
Maki coughed up blood, rasping out, "You are not fit to speak her name, you snake. And I was a fool. I was a fool to trust you, and a fool to think that Project G was anything other than a weapon of mass destruction. That's why I killed it myself!"
Strucker blinked. "You did WHAT?"
Furious, the bald would-be dictator grabbed Maki by the throat. Using the gauntlet on his right arm, Strucker held him up by the throat, shaking him. "Do you have the slightest idea what you have cost us, you half-breed twit!? Project G was supposed to be Hydra's next weapon against the Avengers! You have set us back years!"
Maki coughed, and smirked. "Too bad for you, Baron. Maybe you will have better success in your next life."
Angered beyond words, Strucker activated his gauntlet's secondary effect. In seconds, Goro Maki was drained of all life, his body going limp in Strucker's grasp as the Baron sucked out every scrap to restore himself.
Strucker tossed Maki's dying body to the floor of the vessel. Turning to his men, he barked, "Search the vessel and ensure we missed nothing, then make it look like a suicide. I will have to go to plan B."
Shin swam towards its creator's limp body. He nudged it, once, trying to get Maki to move, to escape, to do something other than lie there lifelessly.
But Goro Maki was gone. Shin Gojira was unable to close its eyes yet, but it felt the grief all the same. The kind man was dead. The man who had cleaned Shin's tank, fed him, and been nothing but warm to him was dead….
And the grief soon gave way to rage. The green-clad humans had killed the kind man, and Shin had been unable to stop it. Its creator, the only one who cared, was gone.
The tiny creature swam away, long tail undulating through the waves, but it would remember. It would remember the green-clad humans, and the symbol they shared. The strange, octopoid symbol. Shiin bared its tiny fangs as it swam away under the waves. It would never forget.
And one day, it would have its revenge.