PROLOGUE CHAPTER

STARRING GUEST CHARACTER, THE STORYTELLER IN...

GIGANTIS, AND THE SUBJECT OF "GIANT MUTANTS"

In a dusty afternoon somewhere in the Wasteland...

A power armored individual, armed in an AER-9 laser rifle, walked along a road, alongside their eyebot companion. It was none other than The Storyteller and ED-NA.

It was almost silent between the two as they walked, with the only thing that broke the silence every once in awhile in their walk was ED-NA sounding off robotic chirping, presumably commenting about the state of the area, and the Storyteller just nodding.

The silence would be broken sometime later, when the big metalhead finally asked the eyebot, "I know what to break the silence: How about we talk about mutants, ED-NA?"

However in response, the eyebot would sound off a disagreeing chirp. "I figured you'd say that." The Storyteller said to ED-NA, letting out a sigh.

Before he could speak again however, they both stop in their tracks when they see a squad of cackling super mutants accompanied by one big behemoth wielding a big club made of scrap.

"Oh neat! These fine gentlemen gave an idea!" The Storyteller joked about, as the squad approach the duo.

"Stupid metal man in the way!" One of the super mutants called out. "We got big behemoth! You can do nothing!"

"I've been told of bigger fish, but the Wasteland's yet to show us." The Storyteller would call out.

Already fed up with his rambling, the super mutants open fire at the Storyteller and ED-NA fleeing to cover, while the behemoth chases after them.

The duo manage to make their way to behind a ruined building near the beach. The metal man would take the opportunity to reload his laser rifle before hopping out of cover to fire at the mutant squad, with the behemoth being very far behind, being slower for its size. He'd kill three of the mutants at first before ED-NA joined him to kill the rest rather quickly, leaving only the (so-far) unwounded super mutant behemoth which was now drawing near.

Despite expecting the mutant to come down at him, he'd later see the behemoth standing in place, looking at what was behind him. And behind him was slightly larger, and smelled like fish—unfortunately it wasn't an oversized iguana, but rather an oversized crab. A mirelurk queen. The Storyteller and ED-NA quickly retreated to inside the ruined building and then looked as it announced its entrance to the behemoth by letting out a roar.

The behemoth, feeling a sense of challenge, would also roar at the mirelurk queen and before long, the two mutants would charge at each other to square off against one another. The super mutant swings its makeshift weapon straight to the queen, nearly hitting it when the crustacean blasted the behemoth close in the arm with acid, knocking the behemoth back and causing it to let go of its club in the process.

In a fit of anger, the behemoth quickly charges at the mirelurk queen again to hold it down, making sure to keep its claws away from its face, before eventually ripping them off the creature and whacking it with them. From there, the behemoth would shove its humongous hands deep into the crustacean's soft body, and in an attempt to get the behemoth off, it blasts the super mutant in the face with acid to melt them off, yet the behemoth continued.

Eventually, the super mutant behemoth would rip the mirelurk queen open and it begins spilling out its innards, as the giant then yanks its hands off of the now dead creature. The behemoth came out victorious, with a partially melted face. Letting out a victory roar that was immediately stopped midway through when its head was reduced to ashes by the Storyteller's laser rifle, and after that it dropped dead as well.

"Well... there's that..." The Storyteller lets out a sigh of relief, while ED-NA let out a gentle chirping sound.

The man then asked the eyebot, "Wanna talk about giant monsters, ED-NA? This all seems too fitting for a conversation starter."

Not too long after...

The Storyteller and ED-NA would be walking along the road again. The man would be looking at a poster for the movie "Ape King: The Eighth Wonder of the World."

"Ever watched Ape King, ED-NA?" He asked. Immediately after, ED-NA would let out a buzzing sound, indicating they hadn't.

"Well, let me tell you all about Ape King, ED-NA..." The Storyteller began. "Obviously, it's a movie about a giant ape yanked out of Femur Island to be the center of a movie about the big ape."

ED-NA would let out a bored chirping sound, seemingly uninterested about the movie, to which Storyteller responded with, "I think it's a masterpiece. Stop motion animation was used for this 1933 piece of fiction, and it delivered."

The eyebot then let out a curious chirping sound, asking the Storyteller. He then quickly replied, "In this movie? He was as big as that behemoth back there, if not bigger, at 24 feet tall, and terrorized New York City when he made landfall to be shown to a massive audience at a Manhattan theater."

ED-NA then let out another chirping sound to ask again, and again the Storyteller replied, "No ED-NA. The Ape King didn't have any special abilities, at least in his first two movies. Boring I know, but I find the monster to be my favorite fictional giant monster."

The duo then stopped in place as they looked upon a drive-in theater in the middle of the Wasteland, with a movie in showing and two Vault 81 dwellers, a young man and a woman, close together and watching from atop of a wrecked car. The black and white movie showed a giant monster, this time a mutated dinosaur with horns, stomping through a city, and it looked like it towered over the buildings.

"...Well, only my second favorite, ED-NA." The Storyteller then continued, before approaching the two from a distance to then ask, "Which Gigantis movie are you watching there, kids?"

The two dwellers then looked behind them to see the Storyteller. The man with the woman replied, "Name's Sabin, sir. And I don't know. The tape just called the movie "Gigantis."

"Must be the original Gigantis movie, then." The Storyteller thought.

He then asked the duo again, "Would it be okay to watch along from a distance with ya?"

The two dwellers would just pull up a thumbs up as they turn back to watch the movie. From there, the Storyteller and ED-NA walked away from the duo as they pick a decent spot to watch while keeping the two dwellers comfortable.

Sometime later, as the movie continued, ED-NA would let out a chirping sound to ask.

"This is Gigantis, the Lord of Abominations." The Storyteller began. "It's about a giant mutated lizard trudging through the country of Japan to wreak havoc after a hydrogen bomb test in the middle of the ocean woke it up unknowingly."

ED-NA would let out another chirping sound to ask, and the Storyteller would reply, "Oh, Gigantis is definitely taller than Ape King, at about 160 feet tall, and is a mutated reptile, unlike Ape King, who was just a prehistoric giant gorilla living in a secluded island."

Out of nowhere, the woman with Sabin would ask, "Why is Gigantis a guy in a rubber suit?"

"It's called suitmation, honey." The Storyteller replied. "Cheaper and less time consuming than the stop motion animation Ape King used, and more believable, if done right."

"Why does it look like the speaking doesn't match the mouths of the characters?" Sabin then asked.

The man would then giggle, expecting this sort of question as the Storyteller replied, "The movie was originally in a different language, Sabin. To fix that for us Americans so that it would be way more understandable without subtitles, we made a version of the movie that dubs over the original Japanese characters, and added new scenes."

"This movie seems rather boring, compared to the other two Gigantis movies we've found and watched." The woman with Sabin said to the Storyteller.

Taking slight offense to this, the Storyteller told them, "I think this movie's magnificent, because it's the first Gigantis movie. A metaphor for the horrors of nuclear weaponry, and what could be the consequences of it all. Definitely helps that the movie was made by people who experienced said horrors firsthand, and no, they weren't Americans like you and I. The Japanese people gave creatures like Gigantis the unique name of Daikaiju, meaning "giant strange beast. Sadly though, this trilogy never went above and beyond. Pre-War America didn't exactly like foreign movies, even when highly modified to our tastes, though it did set the standard for what was to come after Gigantis."

MUSIC: "Who Will Know" by Shiro Sagisu (Shin Godzilla)

They then all went silent for awhile, as the movie reached a scene in the middle of the city at night, where Gigantis looked down at the streets, opening its mouth. The monster's fork-like plates on its back begin to light up as Gigantis then lets out at first a cloud of smoke that quickly turned to a stream of fire that engulfed the empty streets in massive flames, sending the cars flying and levelling certain buildings that were already ruined. Eventually, it elevated to a concentrated beam of nuclear energy that ripped through buildings and the surrounding ground and aerial military that were barely damaging the ridiculously giant monster.

The sight of this scene was enough to make the woman with Sabin scared, opting him to comfort her by hugging her. "There there, Joy. It's alright." He said to her, in a calm and soothing tone.

ED-NA wasn't any better either, letting out stressed out chirping sounds.

"It's alright, ED-NA. No need to worry." The Storyteller attempted to calm the eyebot down.

Calmed down a little bit, ED-NA would let out chirping sounds to ask their master, and the Storyteller would reply, "...That's a good question, ED-NA. I'm not really sure if a creature like Gigantis is even possible to exist in today's world, let alone a post-war climate filled with giant ants, and big green, brawny mutants."

He then explained, "Let's take the behemoth from earlier for example. I told you long before that East Coast Mutants increase in size as they age, in exchange for losing brain power, but whether they can reach daikaiju size, if given enough time, remains to be seen. We haven't exactly seen behemoths that would be a couple hundred years old enough to be as big as Gigantis over there, perhaps larger. The biggest so far was the one that slept near Galaxy News Radio, back at the Capital Wasteland, and still it was only as large as the Ape King. Today, that big kaiju's all but long wasted by the Lone Wanderer and his would-be Brotherhood friends."

ED-NA would let out chirping that indicated she was in disbelief, and the Storyteller tried to justify with, "I just think something like Gigantis is impossible all because of the Square-cube law. A bit too nerdy to explain but in short, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall." Something as big as Gigantis would have to account for the immensely large size, else it'll be crushed by the gravitational pull, like stronger bones, and a bigger heart. The best and only place a daikaiju can exist in is the ocean. Walking in dry land would be simply impossible without a couple details to remedy the issue."

"...Then again," Storyteller began, "the Post-War aftermath of the Great War has brought us all sorts of mutated fauna and flora that was only thought of in fictional media—Giant mirelurks spewing acid. The super mutants. Mutated fish men with deadly sonic screeching. Harold, the old crone with a tree stuck up his head... or rather, Harold, the tree himself."

ED-NA would ask Storyteller one more time by chirping, and once more he replied, "How would the world be if Gigantis existed in the real, post-apocalyptic world? Well, ignoring the square-cube law, he'd be such a terror all the Commonwealths. In this movie, it's established that his mere presence makes a city uninhabitable, with its nuclear energy it emanates. Taking into account the "science" we've discovered, Gigantis would probably be turning any unfortunate human near the giant lizard to a feral ghoul, if they aren't killed by the radiation. Or worse, a glowing one. Gigantis' resistance against military armaments will surely make an NCR trooper lose color at the realization. As for how the Wasteland would interpret Gigantis' arrival is varied, but in short everyone would be rightly terrified of such a giant mutated aberration walking along the Wasteland. I can guess the Children of Atom would bow before the big lizard, being a creature born from nuclear tests."

"If Gigantis was a real creature, I wager it's not going to be a fun time for the whole of the Wasteland. The biggest wasteland powers like the Brotherhood, the New California Republic, and probably even Caesar's Legion, would have to work together to bring down the Lord of Abominations. We'd have to invest in better technology to deal with the daikaiju threat. Now that is a worthy, if not scary story to tell, if it's a reality."

"...It would be such a story for another day." The Storyteller ended.

Meanwhile...

Somewhere in the West Coast, off the coast of California...

A trooper from the NCR would be patrolling along the beach, as it rained heavily and lightning crackled. Curious, they look at the ocean to ponder for a bit, looking at the deep dark below and how far it could go.

It would then start panning down to deep in the ocean very far from the coast. It was quiet, and the mutated sea life would be seen as the view continues to pan down...

Until it was all dark.

It was silent at first, but then sounds of heavy rumbling could be heard.

As the lightning crackled high above, revealed a silhouette of something big deep within the ocean.

Finally, its eyes open, glowing an all-too threatening golden color.

And then...

SKREEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOONGK~!

INTRODUCING...

GODZILLA X FALLOUT:

APOCALYPTIC EARTH