Chapter 7

(Five years later)

We were on our way to answer a call about a creature causing havoc in the Gobi Desert. I was at the bow of the ship, when Nick came up and asked me if I was okay. I said that I was fine, just thinking. When he asked me about what, I was reluctant to answer. But, I trusted Nick and he was always honest with me, so it only seemed fair that I was honest with him.

"My son has grown up so much." I said watching Godzilla dive through the waves not far away.

"Yeah, he has," Nick agreed. "You must be really proud of him."

"I am," I answered. "But Nick, the thing is," I hesitated.

"What is it?"

"Nick, sooner or later, I need to go back to the island where my mate and I lived before I came to Manhattan." I breathed out. "Don't get me wrong, I love being on this team with all of you, but once my son comes of age, I'll fall back in estrus and have to lay eggs again."

"Why didn't you tell us this before?" Nick asked me.

"I don't know," I answered. "I guess, I was just so happy having my son, and finally finding friends among humans, like you, that I didn't want to think about what was coming."

"What will happen once you have more children?"

"I don't know," I shrugged. "There's not even a guarantee that they'll all hatch. In fact, with everything that goes on and that lives on our island, the most I would be able to hope for is at least one egg will be able to hatch."

"Out of 200?"

"The island is very dangerous and even the strongest mothers have a hard time protecting their children." I explained. "If none of them hatch, it'll be at least another ten years before I'll be able to lay eggs again, so maybe I'll be able to come back, but I can't make any promises."

"How long until Godzilla comes of age?"

"Maybe another year, at most." I answered looking at my son. "Once a kaiju reaches their eighth year of life, they start to learn how to create humanoid disguises, which allows them greater camouflage in this world. But this can only be done when they come of age at eight years old, by that point they are fully matured."

"Amazing." Nick said. "So, how come we haven't seen any other kaiju that look human, other than you?"

"My rookery brothers and sisters are likely dead by now." I said looking down to the water. "Even the strongest of us eventually broke while under COBRA's care. And many kaiju prefer to remain in their true forms rather than walk among humans because they view humans as vermin, much the same way that humans see us.

"But there are kaiju that are living among humans, hidden by their disguises. You just have to learn to recognize the signs if someone is a kaiju or not. "

"Wow." Nick breathed sweeping hair back.

All at once, we saw our stop approaching. We disembarked from the Heat Seeker and started heading for the Gobi Desert. The trek through the desert was not easy, not even for me. The air was so dry, I felt like I was suffocating. But thank the stars it didn't take long for us to find the creature's trail, and it didn't look like this one was going to be easy, but then again since when was it ever. The creature we were chasing turned out to be a giant worm, one that could spit acid, shoot electricity, and had a bad attitude. Its electric jolts destroyed our vehicles, and its acid wounded my son. When it turned its sights on us, I told everyone to stay behind me, and shot my own fire blazes at the thing, but it wasn't doing much to it. I wasn't as strong as my son, but Nick also pointed out that if could thrive in the desert then it was likely that fire wasn't going to do much to the creature, whom Randy was calling the Death Worm. It looked like this thing was about to get the upper hand on us, but then out of nowhere, another kaiju appeared from below the desert floor. Everyone was surprised, I couldn't believe what I was seeing, another kaiju wasn't what surprised me. What surprised me was the kaiju it was, it was another Orga, like me.

It swallowed the worm, and then turned its attention to us. It reached its enormous hand toward us, but I pushed Nick and the others out of the way and we began to run. Godzilla began to fight the Orga who didn't seem interested in a fight, only in getting to us. I told and the others to keep running, that I would distract the Orga and try to lead him away. Nick tried to protest but I told him that I would be fine and to just go.

I took to the air and tried to get the Orga's attention with a fire blast, which worked better than I expected, because as soon as I separated from the rest of the team, it was coming after me. Godzilla kept trying to get the Orga to fight, but the older Orga rendered him unconscious with a jolt from the Death Worm he had devoured and came after me again. I did what I could to keep out of his reach, but he was too fast and managed to trap me in his grip.

"Let me go!" I yelled, squirming to get loose.

Once he had me, he just started off, where he was planning to go, I didn't know, but I wasn't about to let another Orga get the better of me.

(Nick)

"Does anyone else find it odd that the creature didn't even seem interested in a fight?" Nick pointed out as everyone was working to try and get the jeeps working again.

"Yeah, G-Man was all in that dude's face, but he didn't even throw a punch," Randy answered.

"It didn't even seem interested in us, it singled Brown Eyes out," Mendel continued.

"Maybe he could tell that she was one of him and thought she was a threat to his territory." Elsie thought.

"No, that's not it," Nick answered. "If he had wanted to eliminate her because he saw as an intruder he wouldn't have bothered just trying to get his hands on her. I think he wanted her alive."

"The question is why," Monique finished.

Finally, the jeeps started up and we could start going after those two and save Brown Eyes. Godzilla was already far ahead of us. He was determined to get his mother back.

(Brown Eyes)

I'm not sure how long I was out, but when I woke up, we were already back on the island where I met my mate. The Orga still had his hand wrapped around me. And we were heading deeper into the heart of the island than I had ever been.

"Where are you taking me?" I demanded, but he just acted like he didn't hear me.

Getting tired of him ignoring me, I blasted him with a breath of fire in the face. I knew it wasn't going to do much to hurt him, his skin was too thick. I was only trying to get his attention, well I got it. Only, his reaction wasn't what I was expecting. He started to laugh, only then did he start to speak.

"Excellent," he said with a toothy grin. I was taken aback, but what he said next made my heart skip a beat. "Daughter."

This Orga was my father?

"Let me look at you," he said as his large red-orange glowed at me.

"Why don't you just kill me and just get it over with?" I hissed.

"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead," came his answer.

We continued further into the island until we came to the base of the mountain at the very heart of the island. There was an opening to a cave and he carried me in, deeper and deeper until I couldn't even hear everything outside anymore, I couldn't even pick up their scent. When he finally stopped and put me down, we were in a cavern filled with crystals that seems to glow when I got close. I was in awe. My mate never showed me anything like this. All those years we were together, and he never even told me this was here.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Home, daughter, your true home," the Orga answered.

"Diagar?" I heard a woman's voice from behind me. I turned around and saw a human woman standing in an opening in the wall.

"Karen," the male turned toward the woman. "I have found her, I found our daughter."

The woman whose name was apparently Karen looked at me and came closer. I shrank back a little when she tried to touch me, but when I got a whiff of her scent and realized how similar hers was to mine, I realized that she really was my mother.

"Brynhild," she gasped, touching my face. "Oh, my child, my beauty." She cried hugging me.

"It's Brown Eyes," I corrected her.

"No, that may be what you have called yourself all this time, but your name was always Brynhild." The Orga, whose name was apparently Diagar, corrected me.

"Why did you bring here?" I asked pulling away. "You've known I was alive all this time and yet you've only come for me now."

"Wanted to find you, for so long we tried, but COBRA made it impossible for us track you down." Karen answered. "And once we found out you had escaped, it became that much harder. I took a big enough risk helping your father escape. If I was to leave COBRA almost immediately after he got away from them, it would've only made them suspicious of me and him."

"I searched for you for decades, but you were too good at not letting yourself be seen or even known." Diagar explained.

"When I finally left COBRA and your father, and I came to the island, you had already found yourself a mate and we saw how happy you were," Karen continued. "We didn't want to ruin it for you."

"But over the past few years, we noticed that it was only you and your son traveling the world with those humans you've been helping. Your mother did some digging and found out about your mate's death, and about you and your son helping those humans who call themselves HEAT." Diagar kept going.

"We wanted to let you know about us then, but you were still untrusting of anyone new, and so focused on protecting your only child, we thought it would be best if we let you have your time to raise him. And when it was time for you to have children again, we would be there to help you." Karen finished.

"So why now?" I asked again. "My son is still a child and it's not time for me to lay eggs again."

"Brynhild," Karen was about to explain, but then a loud call deeper inside the cave caught our attention.

"They're assembling," Diagar said. "They've caught our scent. Brynhild, come." He said lowering his hand for me to climb on.

I wasn't sure if I could entirely trust him. But given that I was in his lair, at his mercy, I didn't have much of a choice. He went toward the sound, deep inside the cave. I could smell the lava from where we were. We were heading for a magma pocket.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Brynhild, there is no use in your mother wanting to keep you out of this anymore," he began.

"Out of what?"

"I am Diagar, King of the kaiju," he answered. "And you, my daughter, are my heir."

"And you think, I'm going to be queen someday?" I yelled taken back.

"There is a war coming, Brynhild, between human and kaiju, a war that could end everything." Diagar kept talking. "It's a terrible burden to bear, but for the good of all, you have no choice."

At last we came the opening of the magma pocket, where several kaiju had already arrived and were waiting for us.

"I'm your king," Diagar spoke loudly for all to hear. "This is my daughter." He continued presenting me.

"You desecrate our race, you shame our ceremony!" one of the kaiju yelled.

"Bad enough you keep us from exterminating the human vermin, now you mate with them." Another challenged.

"Who challenges their king!" Diagar thundered. "You, Phibirashi, or you, Cintalak?" Both shrank back in submission. "I thought as much. Then I make my choice. This is Brynhild, my heir."

"What happens now?" I asked.

Without another word, he tossed me into the lava below. I thought for sure I was finished as I felt the lava burn around me. But then I saw a light coming my way and reached for it. When I touched it, I suddenly felt my body morph into its hybrid form, only now, it felt different, stronger. I burst from the lava and was able to get a good look at myself then and saw skin had become tougher, scaly almost. And the fire inside me was burning hotter than I had ever held before. At last I couldn't take it anymore and released a blast toward the ceiling of the cave, as the fire burned around us, my father roared is acceptance. At last I lost consciousness.

When I woke up, I was back on Staten Island, and from what I could tell, it was almost dawn. I managed to pull myself up and inside HEAT headquarters. No one was around. I saw the phone and managed to call Nick and tell them where I was. It was maybe half a day later that everyone was back and looking me over. I wasn't able to tell them too much about what happened without giving away where the island was. But I was able to tell them about who that Orga was that had taken me, and why. And not one of them was able to hide their surprise when I told them how I had met my mother and father. Or how my father was king of the kaiju.