A/N: All licensed characters belong to their rightful owners. I own nothing but my imagination.

*Some dialogue in this chapter comes straight from the episode, "Day of the Colossus."


Back at the ruins of the warehouse…

Smoke and ash drifted through the air. Rubble was all that remained of the building. There was no sign of the Avatar or anyone else in the destruction-

-A great slab of concrete suddenly began to shake. Then, part of it began to lift up.

Bolin groaned, straining to keep the rubble up and off of everyone with his earthbending. "Go ahead, take your time, just bending a giant wall!" People rushed to get past the rubble and out into the open. "Man, have we got a lot of people hurt!"

Bumi and Suyin followed after the others, supporting an unconscious Baatar Junior between them.

"Is that everybody!?" Bolin shouted, the strain about to overwhelm him. "GAH!" He dropped the slab of concrete and managed to just dodge being flattened.

Elsewhere, Tenzin had just airbent himself to the top of a nearby building, to get a look at what the situation was now. The master airbender's face paled as he saw the titanic form of Kuvira's Colossus, wading across the harbor of Republic City – with a whole brigade of mecha-tanks marching across a nearby bridge.

Rapidly, he flew down to rejoin the others. "Kuvira is heading our way, with a platoon of mecha suits!"

"What should we do?" Asami asked.

Bolin spoke up. "This is my hometown, and I hate to say it, but there's no use risking all our lives to fight that giant thing! Let her take the city for now! We'll think of some other way to come back and beat her!"

Mako disagreed with him. "What about all the people who haven't been evacuated yet?" he demanded, "If Kuvira finds out that Wu is with them, she might fire that spirit cannon at them and take them all out."

Nobody wanted to say it, but everyone's thoughts were on the fact that Kuvira had just tried to sacrifice her own fiancé for a shot at killing all of them. It seemed all too likely that other civilians would be 'acceptable losses' for the Earth Empire's leader if it meant a chance at killing Prince Wu.

Korra suddenly spoke, and all eyes turned to the Avatar. "I couldn't stop Kuvira from taking Zaofu," she began, her voice filling with resolve, "I'm not letting her conquer Republic City. The world isn't safe as long as she has that weapon."

"I agree."

The group turned to see who had spoken.

Lin Beifong looked down at them from the top of another pile of rubble. "We take that giant down today," the police chief stated decisively.

"Lin!" Korra declared.

The metalbender chief managed a smile. "Glad to see you all made it out. You had me worried."

Varrick decided it was time to bring up what he felt was a very important thing. "Well, you benders are going to have to fight her alone – she just blew up our factory with all our hummingbird suits," he referred to the two-man flying machines that they had been working on, a new design to use against the Earth Empire's weapons.

"Not all of them," Asami said. "There are the prototypes back at my office. If we can get those ready to fly, we'll at least be able to offer a little air support."

Korra looked over to Suyin. "Su, you take Baatar Junior and the rest of the wounded back to Asami's office. Get those suits working as fast as you can."

The Avatar grimly finished, "The rest of us will just have to face Kuvira on our own."


But no matter what they tried, the Colossus was not to be stopped.

The airbenders tried blinding it with paint bombs. It didn't work.

Lin tried to metalbend it, but the Colossus' joints were made of fine platinum.

Bolin melted the ground under its feet into lava to try and stop it that way.

Korra and the airbenders tag-teamed to try and knock the Colossus down.

Kuvira's superweapon blasted at them with its spirit-cannon, destroying their efforts and injuring airbenders. The Avatar and the other defenders had to fall back.

From a high rooftop, Tenzin watched in anguished concern, as the Earth Empire's forces continued to march onward into Republic City. Nothing they were doing was accomplishing anything – they were barely even slowing the Colossus down.

How in the world can we stop this? The master airbender asked himself in desperation.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden shout.

"Tenzin! TENZIN!"

It was Bumi.

Dropping out of the air and snapping his glider shut, Tenzin's older brother gasped for breath, looking deeply distressed. "Bay – bay!" he gasped, "Big, g-giant – thing! You have to see this!"

Tenzin's brow furrowed. "Bumi, what are you—"

Bumi grabbed him by the shoulders, "JUST LOOK!" he yelled, wild-eyed, pointing frantically in the direction of Yue Bay.

Shaken, Tenzin flew up after Bumi, and the two airbenders looked out at the waters of the city harbor.

Bumi pointed. He didn't need to – it was impossible to miss what was going on out there. But he still pointed at it anyway.

The color left Tenzin's face, and his expression dropped.

"Oh…" the airbender muttered weakly. "Oh, dear…"


Finally.

He had arrived.


"Get those people out of here!" Lin Beifong had fallen back from the attack on the Colossus to check on her officers. There were still civilians in the city, needing to be evacuated to the train tunnels and to other points of exit.

Police officers worked to direct the crowds, in an almost hopeless effort to try and keep them calm and moving in an orderly fashion. It was a losing battle, but one that the cops refused to give up, and Lin was proud of them for that.

The metalbender's face was grim as she surveyed the scene before her: too many frightened and panicking people, not enough officers on hand to deal with the situation, the invading army and its mechanical monster of a weapon…

"What the hell?..." the chief suddenly felt something liquid wash against her boots, and looked down to see that there was water spilling down the streets – enough to wash against your feet and even up to your ankles.

That's not good. If there's something else going on, then we might have even more panic on our hands.

Lin took a megaphone from a nearby cop, and lifted it to her lips. "Everyone, listen!" the sound manages to create a brief pause in the noise of panic before her, "Remain calm, and keep moving in an orderly fashion. We are doing everything possible—"

Her call to remain calm was promptly broken, as the thunder of an explosion tears through the air, sounding terribly close to the area. Smoke billows into the sky, and the explosion fades in time to for a new, worse sound: the thundering tread of the Colossus.

"We're all going to die!" some idiot screams, and the crowd falls into panic.

Lin barked to her officers, "Make sure no one is hurt!" and the police try to do what they can, but it all looked hopeless: shouts and screams filled the air, citizens running and fighting, a nightmare every which way…

*THOOM.*

And then, the screaming just stopped – like a switch being pulled.

Deathly silence falls over everything: the cops, the citizens… even the mighty Colossus halts in its conquest of the city.

Everyone can only stare at the unbelievable presence that has just made itself known.

A gigantic clawed foot, big enough to crush an entire platoon of tanks underneath, had just smashed down on the street. It was soon followed by another massive foot with thick, blunt reptilian claws.

The footstep shakes the whole street as thoroughly as any earthquake.

Speechless, Lin's eyes moved up and up and up – taking in the impossible sight before them.

It was a giant, as tall as the Colossus and heavier, even more strongly built. It stood upright on two colossal legs, with two burly arms ending in almost human-like hands. A heavy, impossibly long tail slowly lashed the air behind it before dropping back to the ground with another earthshaking *thud*.

Its thick, scaly hide was the color of charcoal, and looked to be better armor than the most powerful battleship or war machine. Water dripped from its body and onto the street; the source of the bizarre flooding from a moment ago. Three rows of tall, jagged spines ran down the giant's back and along the length of its tail.

At the end of a stout, powerful neck, the giant's face was like a mix of an alligator and a bear – a thick, scaly snout full of teeth and the heavy brow and strong skull of a mighty alpha predator – but there was more to it than just a simple animal: its eyes gleamed like orange fiery orbs, keen and piercing like the eyes of an eagle…

…Or perhaps something even more intelligent.

Like a living mountain, the giant creature stood there in the midst of Republic City, sizing up the metal Colossus before its gaze…

And then – the great beast drew in its breath, and roared.

SKRRREEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGKKK!

The sound of it is deafening. You could hear the noise reverberate and carry across the entire city; nobody could have not heard that incredible roar. Lin grimaced, almost afraid that the sound would destroy her hearing.

The giant's roar faded away, as it stared piercingly at Kuvira and her superweapon, seeming to wait for a response.

The tip of the Colossus' spirit-cannon begins to lift up, aiming at the reptilian giant.

And then, Lin Beifong snaps back to action.

"Clear the streets!" she shouts at her men, even as she moves to try and direct the once-again panicking crowds, "Get these people evacuated, NOW! Are you cops or not?! Go, go, GO!"


The roar of the great beast echoes all across the city – and beyond.

Outside the physical world, in the place known as the Spirit Wilds, a dragon-eel spirit freezes, gripped by an emotion it hadn't felt in a very, very long time…

Fear.

"No…" The dragon-eel's eyes widen, its tail lashing in panic as the roar still lingers on the plane of the Spirit Wilds. "It – it can't be!"

But the spirit could not deny what it felt; there was no mistaking that awful, horrible noise. The cry of the monster that was not flesh nor spirit, but somehow was more powerful than both.

In a voice of almost reverent horror, the spirit spoke the name of the great beast:

"Gojira!"

The name is picked up and repeated by spirits all through the Wilds, echoing over and over until the entire Spirit World knows what has been unleashed.


A/N: And there you have it. The Big G finally makes his entrance directly in this story. Specifically, a Godzilla I based on the 2014 Legendary incarnation, which will be returning to theaters in 2019's "Godzilla: King of the Monsters." I especially drew from the 2014 movie for the scene where Godzilla shows himself in full; I thought that moment, with his foot slamming into view, plus that first roar, was pitch-perfect awesome. XD