Kipling stood in front of the window glaring out at the sea while Nack Muwe quietly whirred away in the corner. He turned around to test the motion sensors in the robot once more before turning it off. It had been two years now since the Kaiju War had ended in 2025 and the peace was once again falling apart.
"Skipper! Skipper! Kipling Sheridan Ashworth, you open this door right now or I will shove your head on a stick like a cooked pig!" Ivy shouted from outside of the shed. Skipper blinked twice, coming back to reality, before unlatching the door and letting a ball of obnoxious fury into his lair. She took one look around the cluttered space before turning to look at him. "You really never do clean this place do you?"
"Why does it matter to you? You're rarely in here," he muttered turning back to Nack Muwe and the computer setting on the bench.
"Yeah, I only come in here whenever I need to find you, which is only… Eh, everyday," She scoffed. "But anyways, I heard that the Kaijus have come back."
Skipper's blood ran cold just at the thought of the giant monsters coming back. "You're joking. You found that on one of your fake news websites didn't you?" The gnashing teeth, huge claws…
"Okay yeah maybe part of it. But there is a new threat that has been going around. Remember Kaiju Blue? They called it a phenomenon? Yeah, more like a disease. The news said that it has already reached Central Europe," her dark blue eyes were round, begging him to believe her. He nodded towards an old garden chair, indicating for her to sit down and continue rambling. "Apparently it has been around since the beginning of the war but just not as common as it has suddenly become. People are freaking out and trying to flee the country but it has popped up all over the globe. I mean, it's not like it would start in Europe, we aren't anywhere near the Pacific Ocean."
"Has anyone figured out a cure yet? Or are we all just running around like chickens with our heads cut off?" He asked while turning around to face the conversation head on.
"Would be quite interesting if the latter but a cure has been around for a few years. The thing is it can only be made using parts of Kaijus and now that they are all gone there is hardly any of the cure left. Just at the time of the major outbreaks. How fantastic is that?" She beamed in mock joy before looking back down at the floor in despair. "It's moving faster than they can cure it and it's so insanely expensive that only the rich can actually afford it."
The two sat in their own thoughts but both imagining the same thing, the return of the Kaijus.
Over the next few weeks Kipling and Ivy watched the progression of the disease and the decline in supply of remedies. It was three weeks later before either of them started to notice a real shift in their small town of Whitby, both in the people and the area itself. The ocean had grown a strange tinge and had changed from its usual grey to a dark blue with an undertone of black which washed up and covered the shores. The beaches had also become minefields of dead fish. All of the people also had grown uneasy and not as close knit since Kaiju Blue first hit the town. Kipling was practicing boxing up in his small attic room when he first learned the disease had reached the coast.
"Left, right, up. Left, right up," he puffed away while feebly punching the air.
"If you want to hurt someone you're not going to be able to with those sad punches," Bell, his little sister, called from the doorway.
"Yeah well I'm not going to be the one punching things once I get Nack Muwe fully working," he replied, his back turned to her. "What does Mum want anyways?"
"She doesn't want anything, I just came up here to see what," Bell gave out a loud phlegmy cough and covered her mouth with her hand. When she pulled her small hand away it was covered in a gel that was as blue as a robin's egg.
"What what? If you don't have any reason to be up here why don't you go find a friend to play with or something instead of antagonizing me," Kipling questioned, oblivious to his sisters horror.
"S-Skippy. Kipling, what is this?" Her hand shook as she held it out for him to see. He paled at the sight but quickly regained himself.
"Oh god, we have to get you to Ivy," he exclaimed while picking up his sister and rushing her down the stairs.
"Kipling where are you going in such a hurry?" his mom called from the kitchen.
"Bell is sick!" he hollered back as he raced out of the house in a blind panic. The sun was like a eye that glared down through the clouds as he tore down the hill towards Ivy's house. Bell had gone almost limp in his arms from panic and was barely conscious.
"Skippy, am I turning into a Kaiju?" she asked quietly before going under and leaving Kipling to carry complete dead weight.
"Damnit, Bell you heavy," he panted, the words coming out in time with his pounding footsteps. "Ivy hurry and open the door before I run into it!" he yelled down the hill as he neared her house. People started to gather on the sides of the road to watch but Kipling didn't notice as he flew into Ivy's house and dumped Bell onto the couch. "She- she started coughing up blood. Blue- blue blood," he stammered, his breath still coming in gasps.
"How long has she been like this? And when did she pass out?" Ivy asked in a very calm and orderly voice as she leaned over the curled up little bird which was Bell.
"S-she passed out on the way here, and I hadn't noticed anything was wrong. She just came up to my room and started coughing, no one noticed, she wasn't like that last night." He continued to ramble while Ivy scrapped some of the remaining blood into a petri dish and set it under the microscope.
"Well it's clearly Kaiju Blue from what my limited doctor's knowledge can say. I'll have to keep her here for now. I can treat her symptoms like the fevers and coughing but I can't actually treat the disease obviously. It always starts out with this coughing, then her skin will start to turn blue as the blood settles in her veins despite the fact that her heart will be trying to keep it circulating, then the blue eyes and the whacked out breathing, then the body will start to go completely numb until the heart stops. All the while with intense pain just to be the cherry on the sundae," said Ivy in a matter of fact tone, all without looking up from the microscope. Finally she looked up at Kipling who was looking on in pure disbelief. "What? Imma doctor what do you expect me to do?"
He shook his head. "It's not that… It's just how could this have happened?" Her confident composure immediately crumbled as she slumped into a chair and sighed.
"They say that there is only one treatment left and their keeping saving incase someone of 'great importance' falls ill…"
By then Kipling was lost in his thoughts, imagining the future of his young sister. His thoughts slowly strayed to an even more painful topic, his father, and Ivy gave up trying to communicate with him. Just the thought of Kaijus made him cringe in a way that not many people in England would understand. Kipling had been a Kaiju fan for the better part of the war, until the reality of what the huge monsters were capable of crashed down on him. Destroying families. Kipling's father had been his largest influence in his life and was the one person he looked up to. But when he had to go on a business trip to Hong Kong, he chose the worst possible time to go. The date was imprinted in Kipling's mind, January 8th, 2025. The day of the first Double Event.
When two Kaijus simultaneously attacked Hong Kong everyone was herded into Anti-Kaiju Shelters, including his father. That was also the day K-Science's Newton Geiszler drifted with a Kaiju and set all of them chasing after him. Kipling's father was in the same shelter as Newt when the Kaiju, Otachi, reached them and crushed his father under a ton of concrete with her talons.
Kipling came to, when Ivy snapped her fingers in front of his face a few times. His hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists that were shaking in his lap. Dusk had come and he was still sitting on Ivy's couch beside Bell.
"I have to go," he said suddenly jumping up. "I have to get that cure. Aren't they letting Newton Geiszler keep the last one? He is the official 'keeper of the cure'?" Ivy slowly nodded her head having no clue where this was going. "I can take my mom's car and get a ferry to Germany."
"Oh you've got to be kidding me. You aren't seriously thinking of stealing the last treatment. I mean, I know you love your sister but it is inevitable that she will die," she exclaimed. "It's going to be guarded by everything the whole WORLD has to offer, it would be impossible to get anywhere near it!"
But Kipling wasn't listening, he was already out the door and jogging back up the road to his house. His mom was already asleep and all the lights were off as he snuck into the shed and grabbed his computer and unplugged Nack Muwe. The robot immediately turned on and stood up, replicating Skipper's movements. The two walked out of the shed in perfect unison, a scrawny 16 year old, and hunch backed grey robot. Both with the same goal, saving Kipling's sister.
He packed Nack Muwe into the back of his mom's 64 year old Jeep truck and stole inside to grab the keys. As soon as he stepped through the door the lights turned on and his mom was standing in the doorway to the living room.
"I know that Ivy is a good enough doctor that I didn't need to go down, but where have you been all this time? And what is wrong with Bell?" his mom questioned, folding her arms over her stomach.
"Mom, I seriously don't have the time for this, please. If you want to find out how Bell is just walk down the road but I have to go right now or else I won't be able to do this," Kipling pleaded. His hand was on the keys and she noticed.
"Suddenly lost your fear of driving?" she stalled, her green eyes scrutinized him as if she could wring the words out of him with her eyes.
"Mom please. I don't think I can handle questions right now just let me go," he closed his eyes and tried to calm the pounding in his head. She threw up her hands and turned off the lights.
"Alright fine. Whatever. I have no clue where you are going but I have a feeling that it is going to be a while so you better be back before the end of the month," and with that she left without a goodbye. He grinned and raced back out to the truck.
It took about two hours to get from Whitby to Hull in the old beat up truck. Kipling stopped multiple times throughout the trip at 24/7 diners and petrol stations. By the time he got to Hull it was midnight and Kipling was both tired and terrified. He had never liked to drive, let alone at night in traffic like this, and his earlier rage to get the cure had started to boil down and turn into doubt.
"I'm insane," he said to himself in the quiet of the cabin. "It's undoubtedly going to be surrounded by armed guards, missiles, a code, lasers, more codes, TNT. This is impossible!" But when he looked back at Nack Muwe, resting in the back of the truck, he knew it wasn't completely hopeless. Maybe as one person it was, but with AI and robotic help nothing human was impossible.
After sleeping in a parking lot for the rest of the night he woke up to the sound of harsh cawing as the seagulls were chased off their perches on the ferry. He left to get some early takeaway before the ferry started. As he left, he looked once more to Nack Muwe which was still placed carefully in the back of the truck. That robot had been his obsession for the past two years and would always be his prized possession.
When he got back with an armload of Chinese food, he almost couldn't believe what he was seeing. The truck was still where it was, and when he checked the cabin his computer was still under the seat. But Nack Muwe was gone. It couldn't have been stolen, the thing was too huge to be carried far. He checked everywhere around the truck but inside he knew what had happened to it. After searching for it everywhere possible, he slowly walked towards the water, dreading what he would see. The large grey face stared up at him through the murky water as if accepting it's own death.
"H-help! Please someone, I need a crane!" he yelled as he ran over to the dock in which the ferry was docked. All of the workers stopped to look at him but didn't do much more. "Please you have to help me, my- my robot was pushed into the water. I need to get it back." One of the younger workers took notice of the robot and came over to help. Between the two of them, they managed to haul the large robot out of the water and stood upright in the parking lot.
"Impressive," the worker said looking Nack Muwe over thoroughly. "Did you build this yourself? How old are you 14?" Kipling mentally shot himself in the head at the mention of how young he looked.
"Yeah, I built it. I guess you could say I started to build it when I was fourteen." He ground his teeth in frustration as the man refused to go away and stayed to watch Kipling dry it off and check all of the circuits. A few were fried but for the most part the waterproofing he had applied to all of Nack Muwe's parts had withheld.
Finally it was time to board the ferry. Kipling spent the whole 13 hour ride fix, testing, and retesting all of the circuitry in the robot. A painstakingly slow process, but a necessary one none the less.
He arrived yet again around midnight in Zeebrugge, Belgium and immediately continued on towards Berlin. This time instead of leaving Nack Muwe just setting in the back of the truck, Kipling strapped it to the cabin and stole a tarp off the dock to cover it with. It was more safe that way in his mind. It was well into the late morning when he finally arrived in Berlin, mainly due to both construction and many, many wrong turns.
Without even needing directions Skippy knew the way. It was quite obvious because all of the blocks around the one house had basically become a military base. He parked in a nearby alleyway and got Nack Muwe up and running.
"Works like a charm," he said, grinning up at his masterpiece. They walked down the alley and waited at the end for a guard to walk by. Nack Muwe's metal fist flew out and connected with the man's face, leaving him unconscious. Kipling grimaced at the sight of the broken nose and once again questioned whether he should really be doing this. His determination overwhelmed the guilt once again and they forged onward. The two encountered everything that Kipling had predicted, except for the missiles and TNT on their way towards the main building. As they neared the main entrance it was eerily quiet and they were able to step right up to the door without being harmed.
"Alright, now this thing is obviously rigged… So lets just get to hacking," he whispered to the door. It took half an hour of testing, and hair ripping before the door finally pried open, and in all that time not one guard came round the road. Nack Muwe was set to AI mode to guard the door and Kipling headed up the stairs.
The door was open when he reached the top apartment as if someone was expecting him. When he pushed the door open he walked into a room with a large glass wall. The room was bare except for a large red carpet and one chair. In the chair sat the famous scientist Newton Geiszler.
"Ah, I have been expecting you. Impressive that someone of your age could break into the most well protected military base on Earth. How old are you exactly? Twelve?" Newt smirked.
"I. Am. Sixteen," Kipling hissed. "And you have something that I need." Newt raised his eyebrows and rolled up his sleeves to his elbows showing all of the tattoos he had of Kaijus.
"What is this what you are looking for?" He pulled out the syringe from behind the chair. It was filled with a sky blue liquid which rolled around inside the cylinder. "But. If you want this, it will have to come with the price of this," he said as he pulled out a small box with a switch.
"You're insane," Kipling whispered. "You would blow up the whole street!"
"Oh not just the whole street, two or three streets would probably be wrecked. But hey, fortune favors the brave. And they told me to protect this with my life."
He took a moment to calm his breathing as much as possible before speaking again. "Newton-"
"Call me Newt."
"Newt. We are both aiming towards the same goals here. Save the people, get the cure. So I have an offer for you," he said in the calmest voice he could muster. His mind was frantically scrambling for ideas as to what he could offer when his phone vibrated. It was Ivy. She had his solution.
"I know how to bring the Kaijus back," was all the text said.
"Right here," Kipling indicated to his phone, and Newt's eyes followed it eagerly through the air, "I have a way to bring the Kaijus back. You would have more of the cure than you could ever use. If you trade me that one syringe."
"Let me see the phone," Newt demanded in an almost deranged voice.
"You really are insane," Kipling said quietly as he handed the man the phone.
"I'm the person who drifted with Kaijus what do you expect?" Newton replied distantly as he studied the phone.
"You're the one who killed my father." He looked up. The phone was suddenly forgotten as Newt stood up, understanding in his eyes and looked down at Kipling. His eyes started to fill with tears of both hatred, and sadness for his father. "Bell, now she is sick. I can't lose both of them." Slowly Newt handed the phone back along with the syringe.
"Fortune favors the brave, and I am not going to listen to them any longer," he proclaimed. Standing up straighter than before, he walked out of the room and disappeared before Kipling could say a word.
Epilogue
It was months before Kipling fully understood what happened in that room that day, and even more before Bell fully recovered. Whitby went back to as close to normal as possible with Kaiju Blue still raging through the world, but no one else in town seemed to have gotten sick.
Newton Geiszler went into hiding from the government until Kipling sent him Ivy's instructions for rebuilding the Breach, which he successfully managed to do a few years later. Kipling only sent him the instructions to repay for all of the lives he had selfishly ruined by taking the last cure. While realizing this he also realized that he had been no better than the Kaijus that had killed his father.