Can you draw out Leviathan out with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord? ...Lay hands on him; think of the battle. You will not do it again! ...Who can pierce his double coat of mail? His back is made of a row of shields, ...Out of his mouth goes flame, sparks of fire leap forth… When he raises himself up the mighty are afraid… Though the sword reaches him, it will not prevail… He counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood… Upon Earth there is not his like, a creature without fear… He is king over all the sons of pride.

Job. Chapter 41.

And another portent appeared in heaven; behold a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon each head...Now war rose in heaven...and the dragon was thrown down.

Revelation. Chapter 12. Verse 3, 7, 9.

Prologue

A land area that will day be called Tokyo. 65,000,000 BC.

It was hot and humid. It was not unusually so for that time of the year but enough to be noticed by the saurian inhabitants of the land. At least those were the thoughts that flashed through Blood Fang's mind as he stalked through the verdant swampland that made up his home. As he passed by a lake, he set down the huge pulpy bleeding slab of Triceratops meat that he had been carrying in his four-foot long jaws. With that weight off his head, Blood Fang moved his seven-ton bulk from out the pine trees that made up the forest and across the banks of the lake, warm mud and dry ferns squishing through his toes. On reaching the warm steaming water, he pushed aside the algae at the top, and drank his fill. He never let his eyes down, however; you never know when a Sarchosuchus might be waiting in the water.

After taking his water, Blood Fang twisted his massive head around and scratched it with his small but incredibly muscled forelimbs. With that done, he heaved his gray head upwards and smelled her scent. His gold eyes focused on the meat and he resecured his jaws on it. Meat in tow, he resumed his march towards the sea. Only one thing bothered him. He had a tremendous itch from where some insects had bitten him. He would have to find a ramphornychus to dig out the parasites. But that would have to wait; his mate, Pretty Kill, was waiting for him.

At the coastal beach where she and her mate had made their home, Pretty Kill was anxiously waiting for him. Their egg would soon hatch and she wanted him to be there to see it. For hours now, she had lain on her belly watching her sweet little unhatched child. There he was, safe and warm in the sandy nest, nestled inside his egg. There was something special about this egg, though she did not know what. Normally, a female Tyrannosaur laid several eggs yet this time, only one very large egg had been laid.

Very large indeed, Pretty Kill had barely been able to pass it. Yet as this tyrant lizard queen looked at her nest, she felt that greatness beyond compare would come from her child. As she thought of her son, she managed to catch a glimpse of a didelphodon scurrying towards the nest in the thought that she was asleep. One low growl was enough to send the mammals scurrying for their lives. If there was one thing that a saurian hated, it was those revolting, hairy, filthy, disgusting, damn, dirty mammals. Perhaps her son would be able to do something about the vile vermin. Who knew, if they weren't stopped they might one day take over the world!

However such absurd thoughts were banished from her mind as she saw her mate arrive. At the beach's edge stood Blood Fang with a prize most fine in his jaws. Perhaps the largest Tyrannosaur ever born, he was a fine gigantic buck some twenty-one feet tall and forty feet long. With every square inch screaming of power on raw might, he truly deserved his name of Tyrannosaurus Rex for he stood before her like a king. His gray hide and black stripes set him apart from most other Rexes as did his unusual size and strength. That,and his capacity for affection.

In searching for a place to claim as their territory they had made the perfect choice of the shoreline. The warm sand provided a perfect spot for nesting—they had even somehow felt that their son would be a child of the sea—and the fruits of the sea provided food in abundance. They still remembered how the Kronosaur that had washed up had provided a feast for weeks! Even so, Blood Fang had brought her triceratops meat, and freshly slain at that. Triceratops was always one of the most difficult kills for a Rex, the odds of victory in such a battle were often stacked against him but that is what made victory great.

Blood Fang moved right up next to his mate and set the multi-ton slab of meat next to her. Ever hungry, she dug right in. She seemed so beautiful to him as her seven-inch teeth slashed across the thigh and crunched bone. As the blood splattered across Pretty Kill's huge jaws and as she gorged on raw flesh, her mate felt a burning rush of lust and a desire to mate with her yet again. As Blood Fang saw this, he knew that their child was to have a fine mother.

That was when they heard a slight tiny squeak coming from the nest mound. Apparently Blood Fang had not returned a moment too soon. Pretty Kill used her massive talons on her feet to gently scrape the soil aside, bit by bit, to expose the egg within. On doing that both parents could see that there it was. The egg was shaking and beginning to crack. The father, with all the gentility he could muster, moved his forward and used teeth that could shatter bone to dust to crack the eggshell. The egg then opened to reveal the child inside.

Slightly exhausted from being born, the wet and diminutive child looked around to appreciate his new environment. He caught a glimpse of his titanic, colossal parents but he did not shrink from their sight. Instead the hatchling kicked his feeble legs and twitched his stumpy tail in an effort to push himself past the sandy edge of the nest. Blood Fang was impressed by the sight; this child of his was seemingly one without fear. The hatchling was a solid gray, almost black and had a silver streak down his back; this was quite unlike the normal brown and green camouflage of a hatchling. He would have trouble hiding but something told Blood Fang that his son would never hide from anything.

The child clumsily scrambled up the side of the nest and looked at his parents. His mother, Pretty Kill, ran her rough tongue over him to reassure him. As she did so, he felt an overwhelming love from her. It was a love that filled him to the very depths of his soul. The infant saurian was born from a tyrannosaur but was not to be one. His mother was right in thinking that he was destined for greatness. Future generations would know the child as Godzilla but all the hatchling knew as he curled up in the warm sand of the nest to sleep a sweet and dreamless sleep was that he knew his parents by sight, by scent, and by their love. He knew that they would be together, always.

Lincoln County, New Mexico. 1947

Major Spielberg and his men couldn't believe what they were seeing. The last thing they remembered was being at the Roswell Army Air Force Base. They'd been having drinks and the Major had been telling them his war stories. Their favorite was always the one about the Foo Fighter he and Major Goodhue had seen while taking Lagos in the Pacific back in the war. Nobody believed it but all agreed that it was a good story. Then all of a sudden General Ramey told him that something had crashed somewhere on land owned by a rancher or sheepherder named Mac Brazil. Nobody knew what the crashed object was; it had just appeared all of a sudden on radar and then disappeared somewhere in the New Mexico desert. All that the Major had been told that it was probably just some weather balloon. But just to be sure, he and his men had to investigate.

What they all shone their lights on was not a weather balloon; of that they were all certain. Then all of a sudden, the Major's men thought to themselves them maybe their commander hadn't been lying about the Foo Fighter he had seen back in the war.

What was it in front of them, a crashed plane or—dare they think it—a spaceship? Whatever it was that their beams moved on, it had been ruined beyond all recognition; there was no way anyone could tell what it had been. Shrapnel and twisted metal were strewn everywhere across the New Mexico desert sand and scrub and the main piece of wreckage was completely engulfed in flames. The ground surrounding it was blackened by fire and the thick black smoke was coming off from it rose into the cold clear night sky.

"Sir," asked a private "what is this? Who built it?"

The Major had no idea. As part of the Roswell Army Air Force Base, his base was home to the elite 509th bomb group, which had dropped the atomic bomb itself on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki back in the war. The bomb group was also the only squadron currently authorized to use the atom bomb. As a result of that and the Major's rank he had a good idea of new and experimental planes. Even of those outside the United States. Especially those outside the United States. The hot war with the Nazis had ended, but the Cold War with the communists had just begun. Spy planes had searched the Soviet Union but had never seen anything like this. But if neither the US nor the USSR had built...whatever it was, then who on earth had?

The Major was so dumbstruck, that he could only tell the truth. "...I don't know."

The Major and his men wandered silently about the crash site of the thing when they heard it.

"...help...me..."

At first hardly anyone paid attention but then they heard it again.

"I am in the ship...help me please!"

The Major said, "Did any of you hear that? Check the wreckage! There might be survivors!" The Major immediately went around the plane, or so he thought it to be, to where he had heard the voice coming from. On approaching a large sheet of metal, he heard labored breathing. He quickly told his men to come and help him. They pulled off the sheet of metal, with not a few burnt fingers to help the man trapped underneath. Or man they thought it was. They were in for a surprise.

As they took the metal off it hit the dirt with a dull thud. Then they all turned back and screamed as they pulled out their guns. They were battle hardened men all. They had fought and won the most terrible war in all the history of the world after having been brought to their knees by the Great Depression. Future historians would call them the Greatest Generation. And now soldiers of the alleged Greatest Generation were all trembling like frightened children. Why? Nothing on Earth could scare them. But then, what was in front of them was obviously not of this Earth.

Lying on its back, on the ground, was a giant man sized...cockroach! An entomologist would say that it looked more like a praying mantis, but the Major's men didn't see anything but a monster. They couldn't see the soft glossy brown black carapace. Or the hideous wounds all over it from which yellow blood freely flowed, more and more blood with every breath the insect took. Each expansion of his lungs would make his broken exoskeleton crack further. The men couldn't see the deep multifaceted soulful eyes, eyes which feared the worst, eyes that revealed their keeper's fear that he had failed to warn the humans before it had even begun. All four legs were broken, along with the "hips" where the quadrupedel abdomen met with the trunk of the thorax. And it was from the thorax that the cockroach's mantis like arms were hanging by a thread. The antennae, on the other hand, had been entirely broke off from the head. Then it was from the cockroach's mandibles that words came out.

"...help me..."

Shots rang out from the panicked soldiers' handguns.

"What?" screamed the Major. "Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" His terrified men did as they were told but now they were on a hair's breadth of going on shooting spree. The Major himself made no effort to lower his weapon. Or conceal his trembling.

"You idiots!" shrieked the cockroach through its mandibles. "What's wrong with you! How can you, whose nation-state less than two years ago fought the ultimate battle of good versus evil, you whose nation-state stood against the monster of hate, give in to the evil of hate now? I am a sentient being and yet you only let yourselves see a monster, don't you? Don't you?"

He couldn't believe what he was hearing! It could talk…? But… before being transferred to the Pacific, the Major had fought in Europe. He had seen too many good men die fighting "the monster of hate" to give in to hate now. "Men... lower your weapons."

"But sir-" protested a private.

"I said lower your weapons!" barked the Major.

The soldiers had no choice. Reluctant though they were, they lowered their handguns and looked to their officer.

"...Thank you," the giant insect said through his drooling mandibles. "You are the leader of this band?"

"Yes... I am," said the major barely believing what was happening. "You can talk?"

"Yes I can," answered the insect. "It is courtesy of my planet's universal translator."

"Y-your your... planet?"

"Well you certainly don't see many cockroaches my size on your planet, do you? He he he!" He began coughing. Even laughter was too much in his weakened state. "My name is Kubota and I come from a planet in the Nebula M Space Hunter system. Please you must listen. I have come to your world with a message for your entire planet. It doesn't matter if I live of die because unless the people of your world hear this, all is lost."

The Major knelt down and placed his hand on Kubota's equivalent of a shoulder. "What is the message Kubota?"

"...Ghidorah ...is coming..."

Tokyo. Now.

No matter how many times it happened, it was always the same. Ever since Godzilla had returned in the mid eighties, the Japanese had been on a constant state of alert. He would attack Tokyo again and again with only the slightest warning. That warning was often the only one that innocent civilians had to flee the city or seek the safety of the shelters. It was also often the only chance the Japan Self-Defense Force had to prepare.

This time it was no different. UNGCCC submarines such as Cyborg Whale had detected Godzilla coming several hours in advance as he headed towards the city of Tokyo. It was nowhere near enough time for people to flee the city and barely enough time for the combined might of Japan's SDF and the United Nation's G-Force to assemble for battle. By then, as night had covered the city with its dreadful pall, the soldiers stood ready and the civilians cowered in their shelters, praying that they would survive.

The men of G-Force and the JSDF stood on the docks of Tokyo Bay ready to meet their common foe. The soldiers stood at the water's edge their weapons in hand. Tanks and tank like tread mounted maser cannons stood ready further back. So were missile launchers and every form of ordinance that could be made ready on such short notice. The air was cold and soldiers' innards felt like ice but they were ready to fight and, if need be, die against their enemy.

But as they stood waiting nothing happened; it was almost too quiet. As the searchlights shone over the glassy waters, there was only a ghostly calm. Some soldiers were more frightened by the silence than by the coming battle. Others, seeking something to anchor themselves too, thought of a novel by a reporter named Steven Martin. It was called This is Tokyo. In it Martin wrote of how he had been in Tokyo and seen it completely destroyed by Godzilla in 1954. The novel's translated Japanese version was almost obligatory reading for JSDF officers. It actually was obligatory for G-Force officers. As all those who read it stood waiting for the King of the Monsters to come, they macabrely thought of Martin's narration. It slightly unnerved them as they realized how well Martin's words could describe the situation they were in now.

"This tape recording is for George Lawrence, United World News, Chicago, USA. By nightfall everyone was off the streets. Everyone remaining in the city was on a watch and wait basis.

"The wait, was not a long one."

Then they all saw it. Slowly, inexorably, the enormous figure rose up from the jet-black water. It was as silent as a ghost and as terrifying as Lucifer rising from a pool of liquid night. The searchlights were shone upon him thus revealing his full horrifying visage. On seeing him, some soldiers terrified could barely keep themselves from opening fire, but they had all been trained well and held firm. All stood ready for the order.

"George, here in Tokyo time has been turned back two million years. This is my report as it happens. A prehistoric monster the Japanese call Godzilla has just walked out of Tokyo Bay. He's as tall as a thirty story building."

Indeed, the prehistoric monster that the world called Godzilla was as tall as thirty-story building. That would be about one hundred meters or three hundred thirty feet tall. Godzilla's sheer size made him a scientific impossibility. Yet he was there! He was an apparition from before the dawn of history, from before the dawn of time, alive and awake in the modern world. He was a dinosaur; anyone could see that. But he was a dinosaur unlike any other in the fossil record. Some people had come to the erroneous conclusion that Godzilla was a tyrannosaur. He wasn't. He was bipedal but for the most part the similarities ended there.

Godzilla walked on four toes instead of three, seemingly with his heel touching the ground. There was the stance. Godzilla's body rested directly on top of the hips giving him a fully erect posture like a man. His thick massive, sinuous tail bent low to the ground, almost touching before it gracefully curved upwards in a reverse s-shape. Its final, tapered tip was almost vertical and would reach up over his head, almost touching it. There was the body itself. Godzilla had a thick, incredibly muscled body that almost gave the illusion of stoutness. He had a huge muscular chest. Godzilla's arms were human sized in proportions to the body.

Godzilla had a vertical neck and the head was the shape of carnosaur's head. But the face was said to be feline with a dog's nose. In the mouth there was a double row of conical teeth, one behind the other. The eyes were golden in hue and not the beady soulless orbs. There were also the tiny ears at the side of Godzilla's head. His skin was jet black. It was as rough and gnarled as the bark of an oak tree.

Along his back there were three rows of spines. Each spine was large, jagged, uniform, and roughly maple leaf shaped. They were the color of tarnished silver while the edges were white. The spines began from the back of his neck and ended on the tip of his tail. While the spines both began and ended as bumps on his rough skin, they grew in size in between with the largest along his back, most far exceeding twenty meters. The very largest was thirty meters long from the back to the tip.

No, Godzilla was not a tyrannosaur. That he had descended from them was true but what had emerged from Tokyo Bay was something far worse.

"Now he's making his way to the city's main line of defense: 300,000 volts of electricity strung around the city as a barrier. A barrier against Godzilla."

The United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center had prepared a new weapon in their struggle. It was a new kind of force field made entirely of electricity. It hadn't been tested, but the JSDF had insisted it be made ready. After all, Godzilla wouldn't wait until testing was done. The plan was that the force field would electrocute Godzilla so much that he would leave. If it weren't enough, then JSDF tanks and G-Force's maser tanks would move in.

As Godzilla moved forward, the force field was activated. From hundreds of one ton seven-foot high circular devices, a transparent 120-meter high wall of shimmering energy suddenly emerged. Lightning bolt like surges of electricity danced along its transparent surface as if daring any comer.

Godzilla was stunned at this sight. What kind of weapon was this that the humans now sent against him? He approached it within a few feet and stopped in his tracks as searchlights making their bright circles move upon him. A puzzled look came over his face and he looked back and forth across the wall of energy before him.

The infantry stood armed and ready with everything from bazookas and shoulder launched missile launchers to rapid-fire assault weapons. All of them trained their sights on their enemy. Meanwhile, dozens of tank like howitzers and rocket launchers aimed their turrets at the monster.

Godzilla, meanwhile, was still looking at the energy wall. Then he moved forward. People saw him crash into it with full force. Screaming in pain as he did so and roaring his terrible roar, he writhed in agony. It was then that the soldiers finally received the order to fire. And oh how they did.

A steel rain fell upon the King of the Monsters. Thousands of tons of munitions crashed onto him in exquisite agony. All the while he was being electrocuted by the force field, lightning raging through him. The damn dirty mammals wanted to play like this? Then so be it!

Bracing himself through the pain, he let his spines glow blue. He then looked towards the one ton seven-foot high circular objects from which the force field was emanating and issued from his mouth a blue white ray of energy that destroyed dozens of them instantly. Not content, he loosed his ray on the other force field generators. And against the men firing upon him.

"I can hardly believe what has just happened. Now it seems Tokyo has no defense."

With the shield down, Godzilla marched unopposed upon the docks and towards the city. Civilians on the shelters were beginning to panic as they heard the chaos above and the stragglers in the streets were running like men gone mad. Fires from Godzilla's ray were spreading faster than any firefighters could ever respond. There was little hope of victory but the Japanese would not let their capital be destroyed so easily.

"They're moving an entire tank core to point blank firing range. I'm saying a prayer George, a prayer for the whole world."

The first line of defense had been breached. Now it was time for the second line. While the monster was still on the docks, a combined group of tanks and tread masers moved in and opened fire. Godzilla screamed his rage at them as both shells and beams of energy ravaged his skin. Unendingly the tanks fired shell after exploding armor-piercing shell at him. The maser cannons fired beams of plasma energy from their energy collecting dishes. Godzilla was staggered by the unrelenting assault. Surely, they would defeat the monster. Surely they would save the city of Tokyo.

"George, the tanks have been wiped out by a wall of flames."

It ended as it always did. The humans press their imagined advantage and are incinerated by a blue white atomic ray of pure plasma energy. True, some tried to flee, the tanks tried to fall back, but there was no chance of escape. Now there was nothing between him and the city of Tokyo, nothing to keep him from its destruction.

"Neither man nor man nor his machines are able to stop this creature. Nothing can save the city now."

Martin's words rang true now even as they did then more than forty years ago. It was true, neither man nor his machines could stop the creature. So a woman did.

Godzilla was striding slowly, deliberately, to the city of Tokyo, ready to bring forth hell on earth and wreak terrible vengeance against the world of men. But just when he was about to enter the city, he saw her. Standing amidst the flame and wreckage, amidst the rubble and ruin, was a woman. She was small, even by human standards. But her courage was larger than most anything. She silently stood before him, her arms outstretched and looking upwards at him. Her face was a not one of anger or hate; but one of plea, pity, and supplication. It was as if she had placed herself there in front of him as if to stop him. If anyone were to see this they would have thought the woman was completely mad. What could this single human do against Godzilla, King of the Monsters?

Everything, because she was the one human whom Godzilla would never, ever hurt. Her name was Miki Seguesa and she looked up at the King of the Monsters with a silent plea on her face, a plea to spare the city.

He wanted to destroy the city, he wanted to rain down ruin on his enemies… but he couldn't. For as much as much as Godzilla loathed the human race, he couldn't bring himself to raise his hand against his beloved Miki. He never had and he never would. As he looked at her his hardened heart was softened, his mask of hate disappeared and was replaced by one of a surrender and resignation. If Godzilla could have sighed, he would have. Miki wanted him to spare Tokyo? Then so be it. For her sake and no one else's he turned around and walked away. He walked past the humans, past the ruins, past the ravaged armies of man. He walked past them back to the sea. Back to the sea where he belonged.