Chapter 14

In the streets of Tokyo, twenty tanks rolled toward the inferno being created by the Zillas, barrels already elevated at kaiju level. They moved in an organized formation, spread out over five streets with four tanks on each one. To the civilians, who were still running for there lives, the tanks appeared blood-red from the light coming from the immense fires that they were proceeding toward. Even the tanks themselves looked grim, to say nothing of how their drivers inside them looked. Still, they rolled on.

Just as the first group of tanks entered firing range, a Zilla that had previously been occupying itself with ripping apart a building using only its teeth looked up. Its orange eyes narrowed, and a low hiss escaped its monstrous throat. The tanks paused at this display of aggression, then fired.

Four loud booms shook the air as an equal number of shells were launched at the Zilla's torso. The Zilla, though, had other plans. It spun around, its tail destroying the remnants of the building in the process, and sprinted behind another building just in time. The tank shells slammed into a third building, shattering windows and causing concrete to rain down on the streets.

A few seconds passed.

Suddenly, a large grey head poked out from behind the building. The tanks immediately opened fire, but to no avail; Zilla's head quickly retreated, and the building received a dose of explosives again.

A few more seconds.

One of Zilla's scaly arms protruded from around the corner. The tanks shot at it again, but it too was quickly tucked out of sight, and nobody would have ever guessed that that large empty space sitting there in the middle of the city had once been a building. The tank drivers furiously realized it was playing with them. They waited, fingers ready to press triggers at the slightest movement from that corner.

The only problem was, the next movement didn't come from the corner.

Without warning, a gargantuan grey blur leapt from the top of a building on the side of the tank group, destroying the frontmost tank when it landed on top of it. Without a moment's hesitation, it pivoted to the side and engulfed the rest of the tanks with a blast of flame from its maw. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing to suggest that the tanks had ever been there but a giant scorch mark on the road.

When the next group of tanks rolled up to another Zilla, it also hid behind a building. Oh, but the tank drivers were too smart to be fooled by the same trick twice. They had the middle two aim their cannons upwards at the sides so that the Zillas wouldn't be able to ambush them from there again. After a few seconds, a long tail swept across the ground. The first and last tanks fired at it, but, obviously, they only accomplished making two large craters in the middle of the street.

As they waited for its next feint, a large shape sneaked up from behind with great stealth, despite the fact that it was 90 meters tall.

The Zilla suddenly lunged downward, crushing the tank in its jaws. Then, with a whip of its mighty head, it flung the mass of crumpled up steel at the front of the street. The Zilla's aim was true, and the destroyed tank hit the one at the front in a massive explosion. Then it walked forward to the other side of the street casually, crushing the other two tanks underfoot before they could turn around to shoot it.

So, it makes perfect sense why the four tanks that drove down the next street had one tank pointing in every direction. The middle two were pointed left and right at the tops of the buildings surrounding them, the front one was pointed forward, and the back one was pointing, of course, backwards. There was no place where the Zillas could hit them now. It was foolproof!

Right?

No.

Before they were even in firing range of the Zilla at the end of the street, the buildings on the sides caved in, and from each one a Zilla sprang forward. The two middle tanks fired desperately, but they were still aimed too far upward to hit the kaiju duo. With perfect symmetry to each other, the Zillas tore apart the tanks with their clawed hands. Then, they spun in opposite directions from each other and sprinted towards the remaining tanks which were pointing completely away from them, heads close to the ground. Their heads scooped up the tanks from underneath, lifting them off the road and propelling them at two other unfortunate buildings.

As the final tank group rolled down the street, the drivers had almost lost hope. The Zillas weren't just numerous and fierce, they were smart. Smart enough to know when they were outmatched and how to form a strategy against their enemy in a fashion strikingly similar to the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park, or else run away. Even the first, solitary one, GINO, had been able to set traps. In fact, it had set a trap very similar to the last one. It had gotten a squad of helicopters to turn the opposite way, then jumped straight through the building behind them and killed them all. And now the Zillas could attack in groups. The odds had simply turned against the tanks.

Nevertheless, the last four tanks had no choice but to keep their barrels pointed in every direction again and move towards the Zilla at the end of the street that they knew was pretending not to notice them.

The Zilla acted like it only just saw them, but, oddly, held its ground. The lead tank hesitated, then fired. The Zilla ducked, causing the shell to collide with the building behind it, then shot a blast of fire from its mouth at the first tank. The kaiju was too far away for the flame to actually damage the armored vehicle, but it blocked it from sight for a few seconds. When the fire dispersed into the air, the Zilla was nowhere in sight. Vanished.

Upon further inspection, though, the first tank driver found that in its place was a huge, gaping hole, too deep for him to see the bottom.

Before the driver had time to contemplate what this meant, the entire street erupted as the Zilla surfaced from underneath as easily as if it was water, sending chunks of concrete flying into the air.

The tanks were hurled almost as high before they finally hit the bottom of the giant, lengthwise crater that took the place of the street below, scarring it with four large, black smudges where each the tanks had landed.

As if the battle had never happened, the Zillas trudged deeper into the heart of Tokyo.