"Are you sure about this, Miki—er, Mothra?"
Takuya stared suspiciously at a cup containing a thick red liquid, made of crushed berries. The berries grew on bushes that grew near Mothra's egg. After the radioactive storm, the team, at Mothra's request—through Miki, that is—ventured out into the valley that ran between the mountains through an exit on the bottom floor of the Muan laboratory—as they had denominated the atrium. Andoh and Masako had protested that the area would still be radioactive, but Mothra reassured them that the berries would protect them from the "fires of the gods."
Having picked the berries—plus a few extra for Masako to bring back as a sample for analysis—Takuya ground the berries as per Mothra's instructions and filled four cups with the pasty mixture of juice and pulp. Takuya's experiences in the jungles of Southeast Asia had taught him to always be wary of random berries growing in the wild, thus his initial reluctance at drinking the liquid.
"Do not worry, Takuya. You have my promise, which is unbreakable."
Takuya stole a glance at his companions and nodded. "Well, bottom's up!"
The three drank the juice in unison. It had the rich flavor of a sweetsop, with the slightly-bitter aftertaste of a Surinam cherry. Miki followed suit. She convulsed slightly, and coughed hard.
Masako ran to her and held her arm. "Are you okay?"
"Did it go down the wrong tube?" joked Andoh.
Miki laughed. "No, it's just me again."
"So Mothra, well, visited us just to tell us about the berries?"
Miki smiled and nodded. She paused for a moment, her smile quickly turning to a frown. "Guys, we need to seek higher ground. The time has come."
"Godzilla?" asked Masako.
Miki nodded gravely. "He'll be making landfall shortly."
The four quickly climbed the metal staircases, although by the tenth floor, they were slowing down.
"God, this is exhausting," complained Masako. "How many more floors?"
"I dunno, twenty?" replied Takuya.
"TWENTY?" she exclaimed.
"Pushing too many pencils at the desk and not enough field work, eh?" he quipped.
"Go to hell," responded Masako.
Adrenaline kicked in at about the fifteenth floor and the team continued sprinting up the inside of the mountain. The final level of the laboratory had a smaller diameter than the previous levels, and only a single door. Miki opened the door, which led into a dark, narrow corridor. They made their way to the other end, which was a dead end. Iron rungs were built into the wall, leading up some ten meters to a hatch. Miki took the front, followed by Takuya, Masako and then Andoh. As soon as Miki opened the hatch, the four were bathed in sunlight.
They climbed out of the opening and onto the solid ground. Takuya immediately recognized the area as a clearing in the forest that they had walked through the previous day. When everybody had climbed out, Takuya directed them to an edge of cliff that offered a magnificent view of the ocean.
"Well, let's just sit and enjoy the show," said Takuya.
"Don't you want to do more than just sit around?" harped Masako.
Takuya shrugged. "What is there to do? Communications are out. Godzilla is coming, and it'll be more dangerous on the ground than up here. I'm sure they'll send someone to rescue us, too."
Andoh got up. "Well, if we're going to sit around waiting for wonder lizard to arrive, I'd at least like to eat something."
He got up and disappeared into the forest. A few minutes later, he returned with a bunch of a bananas in his arms.
"Do you think we can eat those, what with the storm and all that?" Masako said, looking at Miki.
Miki lifted an eyebrow. "I suppose so?" She didn't sound sure of herself. "Mothra didn't tell me about that."
"You only live once," said Andoh. He peeled a banana and took a bite. "Well, I don't feel my tissues ionizing right now."
Nobody else took a banana.
An hour passed. The sea around the island was calm. The palm trees that carpeted the beach swayed with the light sea breeze that blew in from the north. The island was eerily quiet—Masako feared that the radioactive storm (damn that Andoh!) might have killed off the wildlife on the island. She kept that to herself for the time being. She'd definitely put that into her official report when—if—she got back.
Her thoughts were interrupted the sensation of trembling. The others noticed it, too, and backed away from the cliff edge. The trembling was complemented by the sounds of rocks breaking off the cliff wall and rolling down to the bottom.
"Look!" cried Masako, pointing to the sea.
Several hundred feet away from the shore, the ocean water began churning violently. A small section of water began to boil and bubble into a white foam. The waves that battered the beach grew higher and stronger. Their grasp reached beyond the palm trees and into the forest. The tremor grew stronger.
The sea water began to gather into a huge wave. But the wave didn't seem to move toward the shore, but stood in place. It almost seemed like a mountain had grown up out of the water. But it wasn't a mountain, or a wave. It was a living thing. Thousands of gallons of water poured off its charcoal-grey hide, revealing a wedge-shaped head whose mouth was lined with a double row of sharp teeth. Its deep black eyes seemed to gaze right at Miki's, sending a shiver down to her spine. The creature let out a loud elephantine bellow, which almost knocked them over.
"Godzilla!" cried Miki.
300 miles north of Infant Island
The creature which had sunk two Russian vessels several hours earlier continued its beeline to Infant Island. It had passed by the coast of Japan, leaving the country otherwise unmolested. It had noticed, through a sort of sixth sense, that the humans had been following it and even trying to hunt it. But as they refrained from attacking, it would do the same.
As it plowed through the waters of the Pacific with all its might, the creature took notice of dozens of ships following a parallel course. It wondered if they were also going to Infant Island.
Drawing ever so closer to the island, the creature felt the stinging of ration against its chitonous exoskeleton. Was it the humans? Or was it something else, even more dangerous to the Earth than the man-ants it had tried to destroy millennia before?
The majestic monster known as Godzilla waded slowly ashore, destroying hundreds of square feet of rare corals under its enormous feet and through the violent wake that its movements left. The beast stood over 320 feet tall, towering over even the tallest palm trees, as if they were grass to it. It drew its head back and let out another feral bellow, which ended on a higher pitch than the last one.
Leaving the water, patches of blue light flashed all over its body. Sometimes its maple leaf-shaped dorsal plates would glow, but other times it was just patches of thick skin that emitted a glow for a few moments. It walked along the beach, each step making the group take another step back from the cliff.
When he finally turned and walked into the jungle, his body continued to glow in random points at random intervals.
"What do you think those lights on his body are?" asked Andoh.
"I've seen it before," said Masako, unable to peel her eyes from the sight in front of her. "Almost ten years ago when it first reappeared in Tokyo. They thought they had killed it. And then that Russian missile blew up in the atmosphere over the city. The lighting struck Godzilla and recharged him."
"You mean that he's absorbing the radiation from the storm?" replied Andoh.
Masako nodded silently.
"Yes," said Miki. "That's why Godzilla came. His body is equipped with a biological Geiger counter with a range that goes beyond our understanding. It can detect radiation from hundreds, if not thousands of miles away. As soon as the storm started, he woke up from his slumber and came here. "
"One more reason why we can't use the weather machine," added Masako. "If anything happens, it's essentially for beacon to Godzilla. We can't have that."
They watched as Godzilla moved alongside the mountains until it found a pass. The monster roared loudly as it negotiated the narrow opening , occasionally striking the cliffs with his paws and knocking rocks out of the way. Sometimes it would simply lash out and strike the vertical slops with its shoulder, knocking more rubble onto the ground below it. Godzilla soon entered the basin.
"Do you think—" Masako started.
Miki cut her off. "Yes, I know what you're going to say. And yes, Godzilla is heading toward the egg."