Later that day
"Mayor Hime, with all due respect, we cannot spare any resources at the moment to search for this supposed criminal in Tokyo."
With a heavy sigh, said woman mayor pinched the bridge of her nose with her finger and thumb. She felt annoyed, frustrated, furious. Better yet, completely pissed off with the commander standing in front of her. How they could ignore the source of this entire calamity was beyond her. She sat back a little in the chair she was in, resting one of her arms on the arm of said furniture, gripping the end of it tightly as if to try and crush it in her hand.
Ever since last night, when they had had recovered from the initial shock of the fight between Godzilla and Manda, they had been searching for two things almost non-stop. The first had been the latter of the aforementioned creatures; his disappearance being a huge mystery to them as well as the city. All they and other witnesses had to offer to the army was that Godzilla had been fighting Manda, levelling large areas of Tokyo in their immediate vicinity in the process, when a bright green light that was like a second sun had lit up the sky. When it had dissipated, he had disappeared completely. Nobody had seen him go anywhere. The only theory was that he had somehow teleported after being knocked down by his snake-like enemy.
Hime and the others had also wondered about the whereabouts of this gigantic creature. She had suspected that Gin, the second being they were looking for, was behind it and had sent the rest of her team out to try and scour the surrounding streets (or in Ao's case large areas of the city with her mind-reading powers) in search of him. So far, they had found nothing. Gin, like Godzilla, had just vanished, and Hime was left empty-handed, clueless as to what to do next and relatively angry.
And what was more, the Japanese military were being obviously reluctant to go after him as they were focusing all their resources on tracking Manda. They had sent out warships into the Pacific to pursue him but he had managed to evade them. The prime minister of the island nation had declared a state of emergency and initiated an evacuation plan and a curfew of Tokyo and all other major cities across the country. Anyone who was outside after 8pm in the evenings would be arrested and these new orders were to be enacted immediately and without question. Other nations around Japan had also been put on alert and were keeping their forces ready in case Manda decided to make landfall.
As for Godzilla, well … No one knew where he was but many feared he was simply recovering his strength for his eventual return. How long that would be, no one knew. A few hours, days, weeks, maybe even months or years. But he was somewhere out there and they had to find him. If not, then they were only risking a second attack by him, or even another confrontation between the two monsters should they make landfall in the same location again.
With all this attention being sent to finding said monsters and keeping everyone safe and reassured, Hime had been left thinking she and her team were the only ones actually looking for him. This explained why she was here now, trying to appeal to the commander to assist her in finding the fugitive responsible for last night's disaster.
And as you have seen, dear readers, it was not going according to plan.
The commander, a middle height, stocky man with a short crop of black hair, brown eyes and a small goatee around his chin, brushed some dust off his immaculate uniform. Dark rings surrounded his eyes from being up since last night and he had to force himself to stifle a yawn as he began filling out a report to file on the desk in front of him to his commanding officer.
"Commander," Hime pressed. "Are you sure you are not able to lend even a few forces to help me and my team search for Gin? It's very important we find him!"
"Mayor, I am unable to grant your request. In case you have forgotten, we are searching for a creature that is a grave threat to national security. And that's not even counting the possibility of the second one making an appearance again so we potentially have two to look for. It's not only your little town that matters to us."
"I'm not trying to say that Manda isn't a threat to the country," she retorted angrily. "I am emphasising that Gin is the danger here because he is the one who summoned Manda. We need to look for him."
"And we will, but right now, that creature is our top priority." The commander paused to put a report to one side and placed his pen on the desk. He looked back up at her and interlocked his hands as if he was a manager proposing a new deal to an employee. "I assure you, when this first threat has been dealt with, we may start looking for this individual."
Hime just stared at him with an expression that clearly emphasised her displeasure, her annoyance with his obstinate, no complacent attitude. They were in the middle of a crisis, and whilst Manda was certainly a dangerous threat they had to look for the real problem. Why can't he just wake up and smell the damn coffee! Even his 'reassurance', if you could call it that, was laced with bullshit, saying that they may help her.
Summing all of it up, they were being left out to dry.
"You don't believe me, do you?" she said to the commander, her tone now low and not attempting to hide she was annoyed.
"No, I do believe you," he replied bluntly. "I have heard of your town, and I'm respectful for it. But as I said, if you have to choose between hunting for, currently, a huge creature with the capability to wipe out an entire city as we almost saw last night, or someone who we have no intelligence or knowledge about, and yet is being presented as the biggest threat to Japan since the Second World War, then you make the decision!" he paused, emphasising the severity of his words, each one hanging in the air as if they were a word of divine origin. "I apologise, Mayor, but we cannot, and will not go after this 'Gin'. Even if we were, we have no idea where he is. Do you?"
Hime went to reply, but stopped herself short and looked down at the floor. As much as she did not want to admit it, he was right. They had no idea where Gin was, and it was unlikely they would be able to find him soon as he was prone to fleeing. And with the threat of two monsters out there, it was understandable why they would focus on the, quite literally, bigger problem than finding someone who they did not know about and who would be a lot harder to find than something the size of an office building.
A knock came at the door and the commander barked out an order for it to open. A young, tall man dressed in officer attire entered the room and snapped a salute.
"Sir, the mayor of Tokyo is here to speak to you. It's about the course of action of preparing the city in case of a second attack."
The commander nodded and turned to Hime. "Ma'am, it's time for you to go. If I were you, head home and prepare your town in case these creatures return. Anything could happen."
Hime did not nod or acknowledge his statement; she simply stood up and walked out of the room, the annoyance radiating off her like a radiator turned up high.
So we're on our own she mentally said to herself. And with Gin now having disappeared again, could this get any worse?
"Hime! What did they say?"
She walked towards the group who were sitting in the middle of a small park not far from the army HQ in the governmental building where she had had her meeting with the commander. Immediately after leaving said building, she had called the others and told them to meet her there. She had avoided saying why; something unusual for someone who was known for being upfront and to the point. When they (namely Kotoha) had pressed her for any answers over the phone, she had just told them to get to their meeting point and hung up, still heavily pissed off about the results of said meeting.
How could they just leave her out to dry like that?! How could they completely ignore the fact that Gin was the reason behind all this?! He was the one who had called Manda to attack Tokyo, he was the one who had caused the destruction last night, and his actions were what led Godzilla here! And now the response of the military and national government to the crisis was basically ignoring his potentially dangerous motives. He was the reason behind all of this, and they were going after the effect and not the cause.
"Hime?" Akina asked as he rose from his seat to greet her. "What did they say?"
She stopped in front of them, surveyed them for a moment and sighed heavily. "They said they can't help us. Gin isn't important enough."
As expected, there was an uproar from the rest of the group. They questioned her why the Japanese military had decided not to help and she explained to them the meeting and what the military commander and the politicians had decided upon. When she was done, the group just shared flabbergasted expressions.
"How could they do that?" Kyosuke said. "Don't they realise how dangerous he is?"
"I don't think they do, but there's nothing more we can do." Hime replied. "Besides, as long as Manda and Godzilla are still out there, we won't be convincing them any time soon."
"So are we going to carry on looking for them?" Ao asked, drawing all gazes to her as she had been largely quiet since yesterday.
Silence reigned for a moment and then Hime spoke up. "We'll have to, Ao. No matter what, Gin can't be left out there. He'll do more damage otherwise."
Her cat eared friend just nodded and lowered her head a little, the slight movement more than shouting to Hime that she was still upset they were going after her brother. We have to try and reason with him. Why can't we do that?
If only, but he's already shown us he won't do that Hime thought to herself as in reply to Ao's facial expression.
But there was no point in getting into an argument now. They had to get back to the town and prepare it for any landfall by Manda or Godzilla, whichever of the two would land first. Even as they left and headed back in the direction of the public transport, Hime could only wonder what was going to happen next now that they had been left on their own to fix this problem.
It was going to be a long road ahead of them.
Later that night
Somewhere in the backstreets of Tokyo
Let me tell you, sneaking through the backstreets of a city was never an easy thing to do. Normally, I could have walked through the city with no problem but it's different when you are smaller. Correction, a lot smaller than your original size and looking like one of the inhabitants of this city. I had spent a few hours trying to stay out of sight, not only to avoid detection but to try and contemplate my new state.
How had I become a human? How had I changed from being a 355ft tall creature that towered over almost everything around me, had the power to level every enemy I came across, and was practically invulnerable. How had all this changed? How I become so weak and powerless?
Maybe it had been my enemy. Manda was an obscure one so something like this was not below him, at least as far as I knew. The green light was the obvious method as to how I underwent this metamorphosis but questions still lingered in my mind. How could Manda have done that when he was almost on his last legs? There was no way he could have been that powerful to change me into a human whilst recovering from a deadly blow dealt to him. But if not him, then who?
I sigh heavily, my thoughts drifting onto the whereabouts of my enemy. His body was nowhere in the vicinity so it was obvious he had not fallen to the might of the humans. If he had, then it was remarkable they had removed his body so quickly. But it was unlikely he had been killed given his fast moving ability and armoured back. They had injured him but he would have been very hard to kill. I quickly learnt that last night.
No, I mustn't become distracted I tell myself. I have to find a way out of here, and find some clothes. Another reason for me hiding from prying eyes all day.
The obvious question was, where could I go? One thing about being a creature of my size was that they were not very accommodating to many things non-human, or even those of their own kind. Someone like me would only be seen as a liability, possibly a threat. Huh! If such was the case, then it wouldn't be very different from when I was in my original form. Still, where was I to sleep? What could I do? More importantly, how was I to return to my original f-
"Hey, leave me alone!"
"Shut up, bitch!"
My attention is drawn to the nearby alleyway that leads to another road. Gingerly, keeping to the shadows, I walk over and, pressing my body against the wall, I poke my head out to have a look.
A tall, rather strong looking man dressed in dark clothing stood over a woman who was cowering in fear on the ground, her black skirt torn down one side. In the man's hand was a knife and he held it with the end pointed menacingly towards the woman. Her eyes were wide, her breath ragged and she tried to back away but was stopped by the wall of the building behind her.
"L-leave me alone! Please!" she whimpered.
"Shut up! Now, you're gonna do exactly what I say," the man hissed, grabbing hold of her neck and yanking her up forcefully, making her yelp. "Don't wanna hurt a pretty face like yours while I have fun now, do I?" he asked rhetorically, pulling her face towards his and licking her cheek with his long, slimy, disgusting tongue.
Although I was not really that aware or caring towards humans, I felt the anger rise within me. My fists clenched hard and I even let out a small growl. No, human or not, this was not going to happen!
I immediately march out and stomp over to him, showing a large bin full of rubbish out of the way with no effort. The noise caught the attention of the two, just stopping the man from putting his hand up the woman's top. Though tonight was a full moon and there was a streetlight nearby, it just barely lit up my body. I stopped just enough for them to see me.
"What the hell you want, asshole?!" the man snapped at me, a look of confusion and anger etching across his face at his fun being spoiled. "And where are your clothes?!"
"That is not important." I say calmly but making it clear that I was disapproving of what he was doing. "Let the woman go!"
He just scoffed and spat disgustedly, showing a few missing teeth and pulled up the sleeve of his jacket, ready for a fight. "What, you from the future now?!" he said mockingly. "What the hell you gonna do?!" he added, raising the hand with the knife to show he was armed and ready to take me on.
I glared at him, my blue eyes burning a fiery colour and I stepped closer to them. For a millisecond, a look of surprise, probably even fear, flashed across his face but he tried to hide it behind a façade of anger. He shoved the woman to the floor and marched towards me, readying to swing at me with the blade.
"You best back off now before I slice you up!" he threatened.
I was unintimidated, looking down at the man who just barely came up to my chin. I had to admit, he was rather courageous for standing up to someone bigger than him. Such things I had seen before in other monsters. But usually it almost always meant stupidity, and he was showing more than enough of that right now.
Seeing that I was not going to back down, he swung the blade at me, driving it deep into my arm. Almost immediately, his look of anger changed to being aghast. No doubt he expected me to fall to the ground writhing in pain but it did not register that much beyond more than a flinch. Wow! My human form is stronger than I anticipated.
He looked up at me. I looked at him, my blue eyes meeting his brown.
With one swift move, I grabbed him with my hand around the neck and lifted him up off the ground a good foot or two. He gasped for breath, dropping the blade, and tried to pull my fingers apart but it was hopeless. I was too strong for him. The woman lying on the ground just watched with eyes as wide as dinner plates, momentarily reminding me of some of those peculiar, exaggerated drawings of human expressions the humans have scattered around this country.
"Now, you will let her go before I really hurt you!" I snarled at him, my eyes now like blue fire. He just managed to gasp out an affirmative answer and I dropped him to the ground, his gasping for breath filling the air for a moment. "Oh, and I will need your clothes."
He looked up at me with a pained look of: Why?!
Moments later, he ran into the alley I had come from. I now sported a pair of jeans, large black shoes that were a little tight for my feet, a black top that was definitely smaller than my chest and a jacket that just about covered my torso. I turned to the woman, who was still looking at me as if I was in my original form, and told her to go home and walked past her without another word. On the street, I looked left and right, hoping to be able to now expand my search now that I was a little more decent as far as humans were concerned.
A large bus was parked nearby and I saw someone get on it. I had seen these before; they would travel short, or sometimes long distances to take humans to their intended destinations. Staying in Tokyo given what's just happened was probably the best idea so maybe I could use one that would take me somewhere where I would be more inconspicuous. Though give my large stature and that I look like someone who had been exercising constantly, it probably wouldn't work.
Oh well … no shame in trying. And I have a little money anyway, curtsey of the gangster I had introduced myself to.
As I walked towards the bus, I could only wonder where it will take me to.