Ok, we're onto the penultimate chapter here; enjoy the showdown, and be here on Halloween for the conclusion!
The Story So Far: An alien meteorite lands on Earth carrying a virus that drives living things into a frenzy of rage and turns human beings exposed to it into fungal "Matango" creatures. Professor Ken Shimura takes a sample to Tokyo and, for some reason, releases the virus into the city's water supply, prompting a wave of violent crime. Meanwhile Godzilla is sighted not far from Japan. Detective Koji Kobayashi encounters Shimura and G-Force agent Shindo and learns of the origins of the threat, which appears to take form at Tokyo International College.
Godzilla is © Toho
CHAPTER SEVEN
Two Weeks Ago
Tokyo International College
Professor Shimura stared at the rock. He felt himself start to shake. It was ridiculous, he told himself. It couldn't talk. How could it?
"What are you?' he breathed, thinking out loud more than anything else.
I have… what you… want. I can… help you. All I want… is…
Shimura felt it snaking its tendrils into his mind, his own willing starting to slip away. One some level, he would always know that he had been aware of what it was doing to his mind.
"What do you want?"
It told him.
Now
Tokyo Bay
It was sudden, like an explosion of rushing water. The docks and walkways lining the bay turned into shouting, screaming mobs.
One hundred and eighty feet of lean, charcoal-grey muscle rose from the water and sniffed at the air. A thick, powerful tail lolled in the water as jagged dorsal fins bristled with raw, territorial instinct that had long-since been carefully arranged into something every bit as effective as intelligence.
Snarling, Godzilla homed in on the threat.
Tokyo International College
It just wasn't the kind of thing Koji Kobayashi had ever expected to see first-hand. The repeated giant monster threats in the world were like terrorism; the kind of thing you only ever hear about in the news and never expect to happen to you. Yet now here he was, moving into the campus along with an entire G-Force unit consisting of three jeeps with mounted machine guns and soldiers armed with what Shindo had described to him as "Maser rifles". Ray guns, that was what they basically were so far as he'd gleamed.
"Alright, Shimura," he demanded fiercely, "what is this thing. What does it want?"
Shape…
Kobayashi whirled to the source of the sound. It seemed to have bypassed his ears entirely. "What was that?"
"Uchujin," Shimura trembled. "That's how it… it talks, I suppose. That's what it is."
"What does it mean "shape"?"
Form, the voice echoed. I spent so long in the cold, in the long, endless cold, the space, the nothing. Then I fell, and there was warmth, and light, and form.
"That's what you want?" Kobayashi pressed, "A form?"
It is what I have now. It waited for the information to sink in. I will grow. Spread. Cover this planet.
The jeeps ground to a halt near the biology lab.
And I will not be stopped.
"Shindo," one of the soldiers reported, "Godzilla! He's in Tokyo! All forces are to move in."
"Belay that," Shindo snapped, "the problem's here." He looked up at the thing that sat in the wreckage. "Right here."
"How did it do this?" Tsukioka breathed.
It waited here. Called to me. I let it grow, let out what was inside all of them. Let out the rage. It was the key to the change. Their rage, in the forms, they gave me shape.
And what a shape it was.
The thing could best be described as a near-spherical brain, covered with fungal protrusions and a coating of slate-grey hide. From almost every one of the dozens of holes in the bony armour, thick, ringed tendrils extended and dug into the ground.
You will not stop me.
The tendrils rose in showers of earth. They lashed out with the speed and raging savagery of coiled-up pythons. The soldiers, well-trained as they would have to be, fired. Thick, blue bursts of lighting-like energy struck the nearest tendril, severing it with a loud "buzz". They missed the other, and a pair of thick, dripping stingers shot from the end, jabbing into the nearest soldier. He gave a final scream, the most primal thing Kobayashi ever heard.
In his last moments, the man screamed and cursed. He raged and foamed at the mouth, then slumped.
"It must be a fatal dose of the virus!" Shindo yelled as all ducked under a tendril, stabbing into a nearby jeep and hurling it away like a coin. "I have to get to the lab!"
"What?" Kobayashi, pulling him out of the path of a blast.
"An antidote!" Shindo yelled, "I started work on an antidote as soon as it released me! We have to get it to the people!"
The soldiers grouped and fired as one. The concentrated firepower blazed onto Uchujin's hide, and it let out a deep, thundering scream before three tendrils slammed down into the middle of the soldiers, impaling one and scattering the rest.
There were too few of them, Kobayashi realised bleakly, and they were too small. They needed more firepower to even make a dent in that thing.
And this, he realised, was the only chance they would get.
They couldn't stop it, and in a few moments, it would seed, or germinate, or whatever it was going to.
"We need a miracle," he said hopelessly.
There was a roar. A thundering, bellowing roar that sounded like the voice of hell.
A massive, four-toed, grey foot slammed down into the middle of the scattered soldiers. Burning orange eyes focused on Uchujin.
"He's immune to the virus," Shindo realised, "there were sightings recently, but no attacks, even when he was near these waters. Because of his healing ability…" he trailed off. "It's possible."
"What is?" Kobayashi yelled over the monster's roar.
"That creature, Detective," Shindo said slowly and reverently, "is the miracle you were just talking about."
With footsteps that sounded like erupting volcanoes, Godzilla launched himself into battle.
Short, I know, but there's only so many moves and such that I can think of for such a non-humanoid thing as my interpretation of Uchujin, and I wanted to save the good stuff for the fight.
Next Time: It's what you've all been waiting for… Godzilla Vs Uchujin!
All Reviews Welcome!