Chapter 2

"So, remind me again why your name is Brown Eyes." Nick said as I was helping him with the boat the French woman I learned was called Monique brought to us.

"The people who created me and others like me didn't really name us. They just called us by a number they gave us when we were made. But the other hybrids like me called each other by nicknames. Mine was Brown Eyes because I, unlike the other kaiju hybrids, had brown eyes. All the others had either blue, or green eyes. I was the only one that had brown eyes." I explained.

"I see. You know, now that you're free of them, you could pick another name, any name you want."

"Brown Eyes is the only name I have ever known. I think I'm happy with just being called Brown Eyes." I answered.

"I understand." Nick said.

It had been a few weeks since Nick had convinced the military that my son was on our side, or at least to not attack him. And in that time, Nick and his friends had learned of the loyalty of a kaiju to its pack from my son's example of following me and Nick to protect us. And they had found where my son and I had dug his lair. But it hadn't all been so quiet. We had already dealt with a giant worm and some kind of living garbage-eating techno thing. Each time my son came too close to dying but somehow, with or without our help, he always came out on top.

Tonight, I was hoping that for once, my son could have a break. Defending your territory from threats takes its toll on you, especially when you're only a few months old. My son may have been big and strong, but he was still very young. I was just glad I had Nick as a friend to help me raise my son. With my mate gone, my son needed a father figure in his life and Nick was the best choice I had seen since Godzilla was born. But my hopes for my son having an easy night were dashed when Randy came running in to say that my son had taken off from his lair. We all took off on the boat to follow him. From what I could see of him through the dark waters, he was really hyper, and possibly agitated. What he found was a signal beacon that let out a cry that lured him to a dock that had been laid out with fish. Out of nowhere, bright lights were snapped on, blinding my son and he was then surrounded by these robotic flies that were doing, fate only knew what to him. Nick led Godzilla back to the water just as someone on a boat close by got our attention. The owner of the boat turned to be someone Nick knew, but from the tone of his voice, they weren't exactly friends. I can't say I was crazy about him either. When I looked in his eyes, it was like anyone of the humans from COBRA was looking back.

He invited us inside, but I wasn't ready to enter the lair of someone I couldn't trust. I told Nick I would stay outside with Godzilla, try to keep him calm. While they were gone, I heard the call of another creature. I left Godzilla alone for just a minute to check it out, make sure it wasn't a threat. But no sooner had I left then my son started to cry out in discomfort. I saw a sub peel out of the gate with my son not far behind. I dove in after them trying to catch up and help. I may not like this guy that Nick knows, but I couldn't just let my son hurt these people who worked for him. After a short chase, they made a run for the gate back to the dock, but my son plowed through the gate, destroying the door, and grabbing the sub in his mouth. As he came out of the water, I saw something in his ear and made a quick move for it. His head was thrashing around pretty wildly, so it wasn't easy getting close to his ear, but I finally got a hold on whatever was in his as I was thrashed to the balcony where Nick and the others were watching. I landed pretty hard on my back and the gizmo was knocked out of my hands, but other than maybe some bruising, I was going to be fine. Nick was able to call Godzilla off and send him home.

"Mind explaining that?" Nick spat at the man with white hair as he helped me up.

"The neural stimulators work like a charm on my attack dogs. It only made sense for me to try it on yours." The man said with a grin that reminded me of the humans that had tried to buy me from COBRA.

"Where do you come off…" I growled at him as Nick held my arm to keep me from lunging a him.

"Like he's your property." He snickered at me.

"He's no one's property, he's my son." I yelled at him.

Nick pulled for me to follow him "Good-bye Cameron." He spat leading me away.

"It's a wild animal Nick. How long before it turns on you?" The man called Cameron called after us.

At that moment, I would have liked nothing better than to turn back and rip his head off, but Nick told me he wasn't worth it. Only Nick really knew how to talk me down from beating the living tar out of someone. When we made it back, Nick and I were still mad about what that Cameron had done to Godzilla. But not everyone was so understanding.

"I hate to say it, Nick, but Winter did have a point." Elsie said as we set to work pulling in Mendel's toy he called NIGEL.

"In the long run it, might even be the most humane solution." Mendel added.

'Yeah, just keep adding to my list of reasons why I'm not ready to trust any other humans.' I thought bitterly.

But the night only got worse when my son started having a meltdown. I thought he was just tired and waiting for me to come sing to him, but this time, his cries were different. It sounded like he was in pain. When we went outside, I heard the most earsplitting noise, but me and Godzilla seemed to be the only ones who could hear it. Nick tried to calm Godzilla down, but it only seemed agitate him more, so much so, that he actually blew a breath of fire at him. I ran and was able push us both into the water out of the way of the blast.

"Are you okay?" I asked him as we went back on the dock.

"I'm fine." He answered helping me up onto the deck. "What do you think set him off?" he asked me.

"My best guess would be that noise." I answered rubbing my aching head.

"What noise?" he asked looking confused.

"You couldn't hear it, it was earsplitting." I answered standing up.

"No, but if you're right, where was it coming from?"

"I don't know." I said shaking my head. "I'm gonna go see if I can calm him down." I said diving into the water after my son.

I followed him to his lair where he was waiting for me. "Waiting for me to sing you to sleep, sweetheart?" I said as I ran my hand along his hide.

He settled under the water just inside his lair. I got close to him and began to sing his favorite lullaby.

"The sky is dark and the hills are white as the storm king speeds from the north tonight. And this is the song the storm king sings, as over the world his cloak he flings. Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep. He rustles his wings and gruffly sings. Sleep, little one, sleep."

My son dozed off as I sang to him and I laid down next to him. After everything that happened tonight, I wasn't about to leave my son alone. We had barely been asleep for an hour when my son suddenly took off from the lair. I swam after him as fast as I could. When I finally made it to the surface, I met up with Nick and the others on the dock.

"What is going on?" I cried out to Nick.

Nick didn't answer right away but I followed him anyway. But he told me to follow Godzilla, that he was going to need my protection from what was likely going to happen next. I didn't need to be told twice. I took off after my son as fast as I could, following him above the water while he swam beneath the surface. In the water, my son had the speed advantage, but in the air, I was fast enough to at least keep up with him. Elsie and Mendel were on the HEAT Seeker trying to get NIGEL close enough to Godzilla. I wasn't sure why, but I had the feeling it had to do with those strange devices Winter had tried to use on my son earlier. Had he somehow gotten it to work on my son? For that matter, how had he gotten close enough to even insert it? The pool water way leading to my son's lair was too long for even an experienced diver to hold his breath, and there was no way and submarine was small or maneuverable enough to navigate the tunnels.

But I could worry about that later. Right now, I had even bigger problems. My son was heading for a military base, the last place I would have hoped that he would go. And worse yet, he just started attacking them. As quick as we arrived, the human military started attacking us. I tried to keep the injuries, to myself, my son, or the humans to a minimum, but none of them were making it easy. After a long fire and fire arms fight, Godzilla just suddenly started heading for the water. Nick and Monique must have been able to bring Winter down, or at least broke his toy. But Godzilla was still not himself. It had to be the thing his ear. I tried to get close, but I had those bot bugs not far behind me. They must have come to kill my son, no way was I even going to let them come close. However, whoever was controlling them must have learned to maneuverer in the military because they managed to swerve around me with no problem. Just when I thought they were going to hurt my son, instead they destroyed the device in his ear and he finally relaxed.

"It's okay sweetheart." I said rubbing the hide along his head. "It's over." Out of nowhere, jet came zooming at us. "Okay, so I was wrong." Just as surprising, the bot bugs took the hits from the missiles, and my son and I were able to head back to the lair. It had been a long night and he needed his sleep. He was a growing boy after all.

When Nick and the others finally made it back, Nick found me on the balcony overlooking the river.

"You okay?" he asked. "From what I could see, you had your hands full keeping the military from hurting Godzilla, and vice versa."

"I'm fine. I've been through worse, trust me." I answered smiling at him. "Randy told me what he did, and why he did it."

"Look, Brown Eyes…"

"Relax, it's okay. While I can't say I'm happy about what he did to my son, I can understand his want to help you. Sometimes our heart is in the right place, but our head goes the wrong way to make it there too." I answered. "But I did want to say thank you."

"For what?" Nick asked me.

"For being the father my son needs. With my mate gone, he needs someone who can love and care for him as he would have." I answered. "I saw the fire in your eyes earlier when Winter tried to control my son the first time. It's the same look my mate got in his eyes the day I realized what I meant to him, why he cared about me."

"How did you and the first Godzilla meet?" Nick asked me. "I'm sorry, I know you wouldn't want to call him that…"

"It's fine. All I knew him as was 'my mate'. If you feel like you need to call him by his human given name, then I'm fine."

"You're not mad about what happened?"

"No, I'm mad, just not at you for what happened." I answered. "I'm mad at myself. What happened to my mate was my fault."

"What do you mean?" Nick asked confused.

"In order to answer both your questions, I'd have to go back to my beginning and that is a long story and it's really late." I answered. "How about I tell you tomorrow, I promise I'll answer all your questions then."

Nick and I said good night and settled into the hammock Nick and I had set up on the balcony. I still wasn't ready to sleep inside. Despite how exhausted I was, I found it hard to fall asleep. By dawn, I still couldn't even close my eyes. But strangely, I wasn't as tired as I was the night before. I went inside and found Nick having his morning coffee. He asked me if I wanted any but I said no, water was fine.

"I guess you're ready for my story." I said swallowing a swig of water. "I tell you this, none of the others can know. I'm not ready for everyone to know yet."

"I promise." Nick answered.

I took a deep breath. "Okay, well first off, you already know what I told some of the other hybrids like me. But what I haven't told you about is the humans that made us. They call themselves COBRA, they make their living by creating and sell the hybrids. Some of us were made in the lab, born from test tubes, and others were born from human mothers, infused with kaiju while still in the womb.

"What me so different was, beyond my eyes, was the fact that I was the only one like me that lived as long as I did. I was an Orga, and all the other Orgas never lasted very long because they weren't strong enough to handle the overwhelming effects of absorbing the abilities of others they had bitten. I was the only that had been able to handle it. COBRA spent years trying to figure out why. They tried creating others like me the exact same way I was, but they were never able to create one like me that could survive the effects.

"By the time I was thirteen, I was already a killer. COBRA would sometimes send out those they hadn't sold yet to 'silence' those who knew and or were trying to shut them down. I was their favorite to send out, but I was also their hardest to sell because I wasn't as easy to control as the others. I was more free minded, and free spirited. But they finally found someone who was looking for one with a lot of fight and wasn't afraid to fight. A man who owned an underground fighting system. He was a regular customer, always looking for the either the biggest, strongest, meanest, and or the baddest. By the time he bought me, I was the only Orga to have already made 10 kills and on my way to another 10. They kept track of our kills with these." I said showing him the small wire hoops in ears hooked with even smaller markers and on one of my ears was a band pierced through the cartilage in my right ear. "Each band indicates 10 kills. To the man who bought me, I was a gold mine. An Orga in his ring was guaranteed to rake in the cash faster than ever."

"Why is that?" Nick asked.

"A full blooded Orga grows stronger each time they either bite or devour another kaiju and absorbs their abilities. Now, a hybrid like me, we can't devour our victims like a full blood can because physically, we don't have the capability. But we do have the parts that would allow us to bite." I answered showing him my fangs. "And much like a full blood, we, I grew stronger each time I bit another hybrid. By the time I was bought, I had already bitten three other hybrids and absorbed their abilities. An Ahool, a Rhinadon, and a Magnidon. The Ahool, I earned wings, the Rhinadon, I got thick skin which made me even more durable than I already was, and the Magnidon gave me strength. Before I bit that one I could already break cinder blocks like bars of soap. After biting him, I was then able to take on 50 times my own weight.

"Within two days, I was in the ring on my first fight. I didn't bite him, but I was able to take him out. I didn't want to, but in the ring, we fought for our lives. I tried to reason with each opponent, but they were just beyond reason. It was like, they had just lost all hope and lost touch with themselves, becoming just vicious, empty shells of themselves. I was only with the man who bought me for a month before I was sent back to COBRA for a physical assessment. Just to make sure that I was still healthy after all the fights. Last of all was a maze to test my navigation and problem solving. By the time I made it to the end, I had reached my limit and just snapped. I grabbed the doctor closest to me and held her hostage with a syringe of sedative at her neck. I managed to use her to get to the holding cell of the hybrids meant to be disposed of. Don't ask me why because I have no idea why. All I know is that I couldn't let them be killed.

"I used the syringe to put her to sleep for a while. I then took her key and set the other five hybrids free and we flew off. It didn't take long for COBRA to send the choppers to find us. We tried to split up to keep any of us from becoming easy targets, but in the end, I was the only one that got away. The other five that escaped with me were shot down and killed. And at the risk of sounding dramatic, I have heard the sound of their final cries in my nightmares since that night. But I guess they didn't bother me as much or they stopped after I met my mate."

"Exactly when did that happen?" Nick asked taking a sip of his coffee.

"I wasn't sure how long I was on the run, a few months maybe, but at one point, while I was hiding in Miami, COBRA sent a pair of their assassins to kill me. I managed to escape by taking a bite out of one of them and gained his ability to breathe under water and then just took off for the open ocean. I'm not sure how long I was out there, but eventually, I washed up on an island hidden in fog so thick you can't even see the stars at night. When I looked around, at first, I thought what I was seeing were the ruins of an ancient civilization long gone, but I was quickly proven wrong when I found myself surrounded by people who looked like they hadn't seen any part of the outside world. I didn't need to understand what they were saying to know that they were planning to kill me. I morphed to defend myself and out of nowhere, they suddenly looked like they had seen a ghost.

"As quickly as they moved to kill me, they started to shrink back like, not like they were scared, but more like they were deciding what to do with me now. Out of nowhere, I was shot with a dart and then out cold. When I came to again, I found my arms tied above my head on some kind of fork like bridge being lowered across a gorge and over to the other side. I tried to pull myself loose, but apparently whatever they used to knock me out also let me weak until the effects of the drug wore off.

"But I wouldn't be given time to wait for that to happen because as soon as I landed on the other side of the gorge, a kaiju I had never seen before just appeared out of the jungle. I was sure that I was dead this time, but even after all the time I tried to get away from him, he never once tried to hurt me. When I finally took the time to stop and just look at him, I realized he was like me. Alone, and just wanted someone whom he could love and who could love him in return. All those times the natives on the island gave him a sacrifice, he was never looking for a meal, he was looking for a mate. Or at the very least just something or someone to love.

"This was proven to me when I was attacked by a pack of Siren kaiju and fought so hard to protect me. I had to do something. I was able to get a bite out of one of the females and absorbed her hypnotic singing."

"So you hypnotize everyone listening when you sing?"

"Not anymore, my mate taught me how to control who or what I control with my singing. Of course, I'm still practicing and am prone to slipping up, but I've gotten better since he and I started practicing. But the weird thing is, my singing doesn't seem to hypnotize kaiju, just calms them down."

"Amazing." Nick said sounding intrigued.

"Anyway, the singing I absorbed from the female siren allowed me to distract the Sirens long enough for him to finish them off. Afterward, he guided me to a cliff's edge where he showed me what he loved most about living on the island, the sunsets were so beautiful, they actually made you see the island as an amazing place with hidden beauty rather than just a place of monsters. It wasn't long after that he and I became a mated pair. And if I'm being honest, I can't remember a time before that where I was ever as happy as I was when we became mates. But my happiness didn't last long. COBRA, and I should have known, but they soon arrived on the island looking to gather more DNA and blood for their creations and yet they found me and my mate while we were out hunting for food. We were able to chase them off, but with me about to lay our eggs soon, I was afraid of having them on the island. If COBRA found them, who knows what they would do to them. I needed to lay them somewhere COBRA would have a hard time finding them, and what better place than the city that never sleeps.

"I just needed a few days. A few days would have been enough time for our children to hatch and build up strength for the swim home. I should have known that my mate would have come looking for me and our children." I said finishing the story. "Everything that happened in New York was my fault. It's my fault my mate is dead, it's my fault my son will never know his father or his brothers and sisters. My decision cost my mate and almost all my children their lives."

"Brown Eyes, you thought you were protecting your children. I know I can't blame you for that. You were just being a mother." Nick said calming me down as the tears started to pool in m eyes remembering how painful it was seeing my mate's body being carted away by the humans after he had already been killed.

"But obviously, I wasn't a good mate or mother." I answered still loathing and blaming myself.

"Well, if nothing else, you've been a good friend." Nick said putting his hand on my shoulder.

I wiped the tears away, still feeling the ache of loss, but I still feel myself slowly healing opening up to Nick about who I was and about my past. But hearing him call me a friend, it made me realize how good it felt to tell someone about all of it, especially someone I trusted and who trusted me.

"I'm not sure if I ever told you yet, but I wanted to thank you for being my friend. I thought my mate and children were all I was ever going to have, that I could never have friends or family with humans. But you, you've helped me start where I couldn't on my own, and I'm grateful to you for that, Nick." I said taking his hand. "I have to go check on my son, I'll be back soon." I said heading down stairs.

As I made it outside, I looked back at the window, I saw Nick working. I smiled and whispered my gratitude to Nick again before diving into the way water to head for Godzilla's lair. Finally, I had a friend I could be open and completely honest with. I loved my mate, but we could never really talk, not like Nick and I could. I couldn't have been more grateful for a friend like him. He really was one of a kind.