Author's Note: So my Dad's back in town as of yesterday morning. So that's good for me. Not sure about you depending on how much writing I get done in the mean time. But experience tells me it shouldn't be a issue. So, Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!
Chapter 38: Magical Warfare: Weapons of Mass Destruction
The streets of the city rumbled. But it wasn't a earthquake. No the people of Japan knew was a earthquake was, rumbling often for short periods of time, or long sustained periods of time for something a little more severe, also, these things tended to stretch on for miles, but not in this case. No, this lasted only for a instant at least, but it kept happening, and no one outside of the city could tell what was going on. It was only after Mayumi looked out a window that she could tell what was going on. It was in that moment, that something had occurred to Mayumi. In spite of her country's reputation, born out of big budget movie productions, the country was never really attacked by giant monsters before.
"So tell me. If they keep making giant monster movies after this, will it seem insensitive?" Mari asked as she looked across the horizon of sky scrapers at what was, to summarize, a monster.
A big gorilla type creature had been grafted with cybernetic parts, and had various glowing tattoo's all over his body that looked suspiciously like engraving magic, creating a weaponize trifecta of biology, technology, and magic, the top three sciences of the modern magician, gone way too far and supersized.
"Miyuki." Mayumi stated rubbing the side of her head fending off the massive headache that was about to come. "Can you call your brother for me?"
In the mean time the newly arrived soldiers were hurling bullets and magic spells at the giant, bouncing off his hide that had been hardened by the magical tattoos. Not only that, but the monkey aimed one of it's arms at the soldiers and fired a barrage of magical spells at them. A fact which Tatsuya observed from up high.
"Tatsuya..."
"I know." Tatsuya replied, pressing down on the communicator built into his helmet.
"Before you go off and kill the Giant Cyborg Monkey Magician, can you at least tell me why there's a Giant Cyborg Monkey Magician in my town?" Mayumi asked, mixed tones of amusement and horror in voice as she talked about what sounded like a B-Movie monster tearing apart her town.
"Humans and other apes have less than one percent Genetic difference. It wouldn't be hard to give a gorilla magical powers. Certain genes which produce Estrogen limits a creature's growth cycle, remove those, and the creature could in theory never stop growing. The cybernetics could be used to control it. Of course this is all theoretical." Tatsuya stated, legitimate shock in his voice for the first time he could remember.
"Obviously. Do you know where Klaud is? It's not that I doubt your giant monkey slaying prowess Tatsuya. But it's a giant monkey." Mayumi stated, starting to sound like she was going into shock.
"This is also obvious. Call me again when you've calmed down." Tatsuya stated as he set his communicator to block Mayumi's calls.
Granted, it wasn't that he meant any harm, if anything truly important was to happen there Mari could just as easily call. But he needed to concentrate on removing the Giant Cyborg Monkey Magician without someone calling him and telling him that there was a Giant Cyborg Monkey Magician.
Klaud sat in front of a broken vending machine, and drained the contents of her third can of grape pop. her jar with her prisoners was not too far away. Granted the had endeavored to make a break for it, cooperating to run the glass jar like a hamster wheel. That plan was put to rest after Klaud stuffed them into a back pack.
"Should we go and help with the monkey?" Masaki asked looking concern. Nervously glancing over to the giant ape that was doing battle with the military.
"And do what?" Klaud asked as she once more raided the machine she broke into. "I used up all my magic doing that." Klaud explained pointing to the back pack that was housing the men inside. "It's a good thing the jar's enchanted otherwise it would really be draining."
"So they won't die of asphyxiation if they leave the jar?" Masaki asked a knowing look on his face.
"So you figured that out did you?" Klaud replied smiling bitterly.
"A magical spell that requires it's own air supply is rather useless, if not down right dangerous." Masaki replied having happily deduced the truth of the matter.
"But back to the subject at hand." Masaki stated as he gestured to the gorilla that for the time being had it's back turned to them.
"Sugar and caffeine." Klaud stated holding up the bar of chocolate that, even half eaten, looked more like it was a small skate board than anything else. "Magicians best friend." With the makeshift stimulants in her system Klaud's brain was abuzz with activity, rapidly restoring the lost psions and pushions and speeding up the process by concentrating on memories with strong emotions and thoughts attached. "Now than, call your little nerdy friend so that we can figure out how they're controlling that thing."
"Oh boy." Masaki stated as he pulled out the phone in his pocket, dread all over his features.
"What's the matter?" Klaud asked looking at Masaki confused.
"He's never been in live combat before." Masaki explained as the dial tone of his phone rang. Not one second went by before the young man on the other end picked up.
"THERE'S A GIANT KILLER GORILLA IN TOWN!" At once Masaki ended the call with all the grace of waxing one's legs, short and painful.
"He doesn't take stress very well either." Masaki stated as he put his phone away.
Simultaneously face palming and putting her mask back on, Klaud called her sisters again.
"Hey Rebecca." Klaud started the conversation off with as little enthusiasm as she could possibly muster.
"So I take it you're aware of the giant ape tearing apart the Japanese Self Defense Force?" Rebecca asked as if she was reading the newspaper.
"Several times." Klaud stated dryly, walking a few steps to dodge a tank that was hurled in her direction. "We should probably do something about that."
"Way ahead of you." Rebecca stated as Klaud heard beeping in the background.
"Rebecca, did you make a giant killer gorilla for Great Asian Alliance?" Klaud asked her dry dread replaced by pure suspicion.
"Why would she do something like that?" Masaki asked confusion on his face.
"Our Dad's the top thug in the No Head Dragons." Klaud stated as if she were stating the obvious.
"No, but I have a fairly good idea of what's going on. Unlike Japan the Chinese government didn't have access to magicians that they could mass clone. Well, magicians that they knew about anyway. So they laid the ground work using apes, like gorillas." Rebecca explained prompting Klaud to scratch her head.
"Not to state the obvious here Rebecca, but wasn't that like a hundred years ago?" Klaud asked as she counted the decades of age that the gorilla must be on her fingers.
"Yes which helps to explain his size." Rebecca stated in her newspaper tone of voice again. "How does being a hundred years old explain his size!?" Klaud asked gesturing to the giant great ape.
"Magicians were not the only line of super soldiers that the Chinese government was experimenting with. They also experimented with Estrogen." Rebecca's statement caused Klaud to draw a blank.
"Is that some kinda super soldier drug?" Klaud asked confusion obvious.
"Hardly. It's a hormone that the body starts to release at puberty, it harden's the bones and grinds the body's ability to grow naturally to a halt. Without it, then in theory there's no limit to how big you can grow." Rebecca explained mirroring Klaud's earlier obvious tone of voice.
"So to recap, that monkey is a lab monkey that the Great Asian Alliance has been continuously experimenting on for their super soldier program for the past hundred years. Fantastic but so what? Unless you got a long list of the specifications of that program we still got a giant killer gorilla we need to take apart." Masaki explained gesturing to the Gorilla whom based on the look on it's face was starting to notice their presence.
"I do. Assuming that the same technology that goes into the generators exists in that thing then that also means someone is pulling the strings. So someone else should go and pull their plugs!" Rebecca stated a dangerous tone in her voice.
"I'll cut their strings." Klaud stated as she took her communicator out of her mask and stuffed it into Masaki's ear. "You pull their plugs." Saying that, Klaud loaded several cards into her C.A.D before firing them off.
The gorilla, or more accurately it's pilot who was sharing a mental connection and thus had all of it's feelings transmitted to, was quite confused when it felt someone tapping on its shoulder. Not only was said shoulder ninety feet in the air, but he was kinda in the middle of something. So turning around you can imagine the further surprise when someone punched him in the face hard enough to send him skipping through the streets.
"Hello Magi Kong, I'm Clown-Zilla, but you can call me Gelos." Klaud stated, cracking knuckles big enough to crack vending machines like walnuts.
At once the beastly gorilla got to his feet again and charged at Klaud. True, Klaud could use one of her more offensive cards, the erase for example, but at this size that seemed... ill advised. Instead she went with her buffing cards, power and speed. The effects of which this ape was feeling first hand when Klaud unleashed a salvo of punches to his face. But the monkey had no qualms about collateral damage and saw fit to shoot everything from acid to water at her through the use of the hundreds of C.A.D.'s that might as well be the thing's hair there was so many of them. But the Lightning card would have something to say about that.
"I'm." Klaud snapped, slamming her staff down on top of the Gorilla's head, lightning accompanying the impact. "Not." A second strike, with even more sparks than the first. "Getting!" A third strike, lightning visibly arcing off the beast. "Beaten!" A fourth strike brought the ape to it's knees as the buildings around them began to show the wear of the strikes. "By a!" Fourth strike caused the beast's limbs to buckle. "MONKEY!"
Suddenly the beast stopped with it's feint and let loose on Klaud with a sharp upper cut enhanced by it's use of magic to send her skyward. Not done with her yet the beast shoved itself into the air by slamming both of it's fists into the ground getting even higher than Klaud was it got into position to deliver a crushing elbow drop. Klaud reversed the Big's effects on her and returned to normal size just in time to avoid being elbow dropped by six tons of ape. She followed this up with using the jump card to land safely, while the ape was confused about where Klaud had gone she had already readied the sword card. At once Klaud jumped and plunged the blade deep into the beast's throat, before flipping around till she was upside down and planted her feet firmly against the beast's chin and kicked. In addition to the blow to the jaw that didn't feel too different from being hit by a heavy weight boxer, there was also the fact that Klaud was just sent careening down the monkey's body like a bullet and disconnecting at the crotch, leaving a huge slash in the beast's body in the process.
"Yowza I did not need to see that." Klaud stated mentally noting that 'Monkey Balls' was now her new favorite substitute swear word. Which went to work immediately as the Gorilla picked up and crushed her in it's grip. "Sod off Yah Monkey!" Klaud slammed her hand into the great ape's arm and immediately what hair her opponent had left on his arm was set on fire. While the ape danced about in pain it's C.A.D.'s went to work trying to extinguish the flames, which is what Klaud assumed was responsible for the large burn that bisected the beast straight down the middle. "So priority one, C.A.D.'s." Klaud jerking when she tried to adjust her staff reminded her of a rather serious problem. "Actually priority one is broken ribs... then C.A.D.'s." First Klaud loaded the Time Card and healed her body. Whipping out the staff and turning it to gun form Klaud loaded the arrow card. The Massive indiscriminate spread of projectiles served her purposes well skewering many of the C.A.D.'s that covered the beast's body and rendering them non-functional. That out of the way Klaud loaded a Speed Sword combination and rushed pass the leg of the ape, severing it's foot in the process. As the beast awkwardly hopped on one foot for a few minuets Klaud replaced speed with jump, taking the ape's arm at the shoulder and throwing the already off balance beast to the ground. "To you sir!" Klaud stated aiming the business end of her gun at the beast's head. "I say good night!" A loud bang signaled the end of the beast's long life. Klaud spilled out on the ground, exhaustion from a long day's work hitting her hard as several soldiers swarmed her to help. It was then that she heard her phone ringing.
"Terrific." Getting the phone out Klaud put it on speaker and left it next to her ear. "Hey guys. I just killed the monkey, so you can stop calling me about that." Klaud stated her tiredness leaking out through her mouth.
"Good Tatsuya is just finishing up with the rest right now." Mari explained much calmer than Mayumi was.
On cue a roaming battle between the remaining soldiers and mechs of the Great Asian Alliance and a group of soldiers in black body armor passed by. If Klaud wasn't so tired, she would note that the magic coming out of the leader of the Black suited men was reviving the fallen members of his unit using his right gun, or divine right as the GAA had dubbed it, and vaporizing the enemy forces with his left, or Demon Left as it was also dubbed. Oh yes they weren't getting out of this.
In the meantime though Masaki had tracked the men pulling the Gorilla's strings to the docks where he saw a large cargo ship, the source of all of this trouble was already leaving.
"Oh Klaud's not gonna be happy about this."
That evening Tatsuya was loaded onto a jump ship and sent off for some unknown mission. On a side note that Klaud was sure wasn't related, Japan took the liberty of demonstrating their newest weapon of mass destruction to the GAA, by wiping out a third of their fleet who had gathered in the pacific ocean with a explosion that exceeded even the strongest of nuclear blasts. In the weeks to come, Klaud learned that her father had made some not so polite inquiries to the now much weaker government and was told he would soon be visiting Japan, as it's new ambassador.
Review Section:
Hornofdesolation: A few bumps, but nothing they couldn't handle.
Duked: They get blown up, Klaud might have some sympathy for her countrymen but the rest of Japan doesn't feel the same way.