Chapter 3: A call to arms

Madison was knocked out from the amount of energy she had used up, it took some time before she became conscious again. She was back in sleep, in a dream where she could control her world around her.

It was all dark and empty around her again, she looked around and stretched out her arms, she could see them quite clearly as if only she herself was illuminated. At one point she cracked her fingers and turned the head a little, she felt so tense, for good reason of course, but still a little strange that it went all the way to her dream. She still wasn't quite sure what this was all about, however she now believed it was a more active form or variation of lucid dreaming that allowed her to share a dream with others, for now it was just Godzilla and no one else though, at least that's what her research had revealed.

"Godzilla?" She shouted, it held for a few seconds, Maddie tried to make contact with him, but there was no answer, probably he was still awake and on the move. A few more minutes she would give herself and then wake up. Who knows how much time had passed or where she was then. Somehow she was counting on the fact that maybe Monarch had her in custody and had put her in some lab or was in the hospital, next to some guard of theirs and handcuffed to the bed.

She didn't want to think about it any further, she wanted to rest for a short time and then wake up again. Although she thought to build a world, as she always did with Godzilla to meet with in this dream, but that was unnecessary if she just wanted to rest her mind very briefly and gather energy, which her body had probably already done. She closed her eyes and thought of a simple thing, a cozy mattress. After a few seconds she opened her eyes again and saw a mattress adapted to her size, which was very thick.

Maddie sighed briefly and slumped down, spreading her arms. Her gaze was directed upward, staring up into the black void, thinking a little about things she should do now, move away or fight to stay with Miki but again be locked in the apartment.

In addition, there was the thing with Godzilla and what called the two, she somehow felt that probably a fight stood before the two, it seemed as if another Titan would be out of balance, only which it could be she had no idea, and neither the news nor anywhere else had said anything that a Titan would have become really dangerous. Sure, Behemoth and Godzilla had recently clashed, but it didn't lead to such a big fight or was dramatic, this was much bigger.

As she thought, she noticed it getting colder around her, wind picking up and blowing around, surrounding her. Maddie knew this feeling, knew what it was and what it would mean.

At first she thought of just closing her eyes, before that it had always worked to escape him, but this time she decided to stand against him. She always had to fear him in her dreams, before the island, before she got her powers, she hadn't seen him for a long time, but all that was yesterday, and this is today.

Madison sat up, the wind blowing in her face, from a distance she could see flashes of yellow, some kind of fog moving in. Slowly she got up from the mattress and took a firm stance, her fists were clenched, her gaze fixed forward. This was the first time he appeared in a dream like this and she still had no idea how it would end for her.

Slowly the fog came closer and fell down to the ground and spread around the ground, a large cloud built up in front of Maddie, inside of it was a shadow. Eyes opened, six in total stared down at her, then came the wings and with a single blow, they blew away all the fog that had built up around the two, Monster Zero revealed himself to her.

He was not at his full titanic size, much like Godzilla he had grown smaller in her dream, just under 3 meters with the necks and heads all the way up. Eye to eye the two saw each other and Madison felt an immense fear in her, but also hatred.

Around her it began to snow, the wind blew flakes into her hair and face, but she could hardly care right now - all her attention was devoted to her own devil.

Ghidorah hissed with his tongues like a snake, at the end of his tail it rattled like the end of a rattlesnakes tail. The left head of the three snapped a little forward toward her, but was held back by the middle one, as Maddie could remember it from Antarctica, they fought a little with each other.

She took a step forward, stomping heavily, Ghidorah yelled at her. "I'm not afraid of you!" She shouted, "You are dead, I am alive! I have defeated you! I defeated your queen! You are nothing but memories now!"

Unlike what she expected, Ghidorah did not yell at her. Instead, the three inspected her closely, she saw them meandering from side to side, their heads turning slightly. "What are you waiting for?!" Maddie shouted at him.

And again, unexpectedly, there was no roar, nor did he attack for the moment. Rather a cackle came out, as if he was laughing at them. Then from one moment to the next all three heads snapped forward. However, this time Madison had something for him as a surprise, instead of just letting it happen, she grabbed the right and left heads before they snapped shut and squeezed their necks and braced herself against him, the middle head screeched and stretched up into the air. Maddie growled as she stood against him with all her strength, the necks were hard to grip and wildly snapped around at her arm to hurt her, but then she pulled harder, pushing him closer to her and with her right leg she kicked him in the chest.

She had completely forgotten that it was a dream she was in, it felt so real again.

Ghidorah's middle head shook and then looked down at Maddie, baring his teeth and roaring at her, she was stronger than he expected from the tiny human.

Maddie saw flashes slowly building in his neck, a yellowish light shining from his mouth. On the necks she held, she felt her hands tingle. She screamed at him out of defiance.

Slowly she awoke from her sleep, feeling herself returning to the normal world. Something touched her head and stroked through her hair, very gently. She felt the back of her head resting on something very soft, it felt warm.

Carefully she opened her eyes for a second everything was a little blurry, briefly she blinked and was able to see clearly again, she was in the head office of the school, it must not have been too long since she had passed out, outside it was still bright.

She needed a while to orient herself again in the room looked everywhere back and forth, she layed on the couch sitting in the back, where on both sides were bookshelves. Just next to the end where her feet lay was also the door, to the right of which were just more office shelves, with a picture hanging from the wall in the middle.

Only now did she realize who was stroking her head when she looked up, it was Abby, and Madison was lying with her head on her lap. Shortly she felt tingly at the thought, even if she did not understand why.

Abby looked all done up with nerves, her make up was gone, probably because she had been crying, she had gotten a scratch on her chin, but other than that she wasn't really hurt.

She hadn't even noticed that Madison had woken up again, Abby was completely fixated on the discussion in front of her, which Maddie had completely blocked out at first, she looked ahead, saw two familiar people and voices sitting in front of the director's table.

"We can't keep this thing a secret, that's for sure." "I know Mr. Russell but how am I going to explain this to the board? Not to mention your daughter had two people hospitalized, this school probably needs to close." "Monarch can take care of it, I have higher contacts, but I can't guarantee anything."

Mark's voice woke Maddie up, she felt alive again and almost rejoiced.

"Dad." she whispered. Maddie slowly straightened up, Abby looking straight down at her as she felt the movements. "She's awake!" Abby exclaimed excitedly, helping Maddie sit up.

Mark snapped back and immediately jumped up to her. "Maddie! Are you okay, what happened." He gave her a hug immediately, a little crushed by him at first Maddie felt much better right away. "I'm fine dad, thank you." He let go of her and grabbed her forehead like she had the flu or something, he was more panicked than he ever had been in a long time. "You can really scare your old man sometimes." "Sorry." Mark sighed and nodded. "Why did you do that, there were dozens of people who saw you, who knows what else could have happened."

"I-I couldn't control myself, I saw Abby was in danger, then I couldn't think straight and I just wanted to protect her." Abby got all red in the face from it. "Maddie..."

Mark raised his eyebrow a bit skeptically, but didn't think twice about it and stood up again as he turned to the principal.
"The most important thing is that you get better." Said Miki who just got up from the other chair and walked over to Maddie and held her hand.
She felt Maddie's pulse, it was back to normal, when she was carried in she had an almost dangerously high one for a normal person, but it went back down after a while, Abby had never left her side.
Miki grabbed her shoulder, "We all know you were just trying to do the right thing, but now we're all in trouble unfortunately. A lot of people have seen you, that you have powers that even Monarch doesn't quite understand can't be kept a secret anymore, but we'll probably have to move." Miki sighed and stood back up, turning to the principal as well. "Well, I guess that means I get rid of two students." She said, she was already tired as Maddie could tell, she probably wanted to go home just before Maddie attacked.

"Too bad actually, didn't find it bad here." Abby leaned back with her arms across her back.

"You'll all gave to move Castel Bravo for a while, I guess." Said Ilene Chen standing in next to the window to Maddie's right, she hadn't even noticed her until now. "Listen Maddie, you can visit your boyfriend again." "Don't say that, he's not-" But before Maddie could correct Abby, a loud echo went through the entire city, a very familiar hum in Maddie's and everyone else's ears.

"He's here? The radar hadn't marked him on this route though?!" Said Ilene and opened the window to look out over the bay, in the distance from the ocean you could already see him pushing forward the three rows of dorsal plates.

Mark was the first to respond. "Okay Ms...Principal, you need to get to safety, does the school have shelters or something?" "Yes we have an old tornado shelter." "That won't be enough, get all the teachers out of the building as fast as you can and as far away as you can." The principal nodded and immediately made her way to the teachers' lounge.

Mark turned over to Ilene who was standing by the window. "How long do you think we have Ilene?" "Maybe a few minutes." "Good, we'll be on our way in a minute too." "No wait." Said Maddie, everyone turning to her.

"Godzilla is here for me, he realized the situation I was in." "Oh God Maddie." Abby grabbed her forehead and shook her head. "That means he won't necessarily be friendly when he answers a call for help." Ilene immediately picked up her radio and called the Osprey, telling them to pick her up as soon as possible and request evacuation. Maddie in the meantime got up and also went to the window and stared at the harbor where Godzilla was slowly approaching closer and closer, she was not afraid for her safety, but was worried what he might do to others.

She looked behind her at Mark who had his arms crossed. The two looked at each other, without uttering a word to each other they both knew what Maddie had to do and he just nodded.

Immediately she jumped onto the window sill and out the window, it was the first floor, 2 meters if that, she landed without any issues.
Miki wanted to stop her but Mark held her back.
"Maddie don't! Let go of me Mark!" "No, she's the only one able to face this catastrophe right now. I'm her father, I'm more worried than you can imagine." Mark noticed that Miki was shaking, she was afraid of what could happen, rightly so, but who knows what else could happen, just now she feared for the life of her protégé and now she just had to let her go.

Maddie ran as fast as she could across the back school yard, Godzilla was slowly coming out of the water, his dorsal plates and eyes were glowing blue and pulsing, an intimidation display, not just to a Titan, but to anything that lived for miles around. He was angry, he was provoked, Maddie knew what that was like, but at Godzilla's size much worse could happen. She just had to reach him and show that everything was okay.

Godzilla meanwhile was stomping through the bay towards the East River, just arriving at the Brooklyn Bridge and for a brief moment Madison's heart stopped. He stood in front of the bridge and looked down, it was just up to his chest and he could have just walked through it as if it were nothing, similar to the Golden Gate Bridge. His gaze was directed downward, at the people who were on the bridge. Many had gotten out of their cars, some just stood there frozen, the others ran as fast as they could, there was a traffic jam, they would have escaped faster on foot than trying to drive away.

He watched the movements in front of him, like a child looking at an anthill. Meanwhile, he did not take a step forward, he just puffed loudly, he was still angry, but he thought about whether he should attack.

Madison thought desperately what she could do, she could not call to him, he was much too far away for that, she had hardly any energy left in her and if she used it again it could become too dangerous for her.

But to her surprise, he decided not to attack, instead he briefly roared down at the obstacle in front of him, but then he bent down into the river below the bridge, far enough to just miss them, the water was deep enough that he could just drag himself across the riverbed on his belly and it wouldn't end in disaster. People ran from one side to the other to see him, some even took pictures of him. Slowly he continued to swim along the Easter River, creating a large wave that caused the river to sway over the sides, as he swam past the dock they knocked over a few containers, just barely missing the workers.

Arriving at the first turn he slowly rose out of the water again, like waterfalls it ran down from him, he shook himself once and straightened up. Godzilla's back plates broke through the sunshine, his head stretched up and he let out an extremely loud roar that was heard clearly throughout New York, the king was furious that his partner was calling for help. Madison heard familiar buzzing as blue light came from the water slowly streaming up his back as he faced the sky.

With a mighty thrust he let his atomic shoot into the sky, the blue light breaking through the low lying orange clouds dipped by the evening sun as his roar held in the background. With that he warned possible opponents and called for his partner, it was a call to arms.

Godzilla was now in the bay, in front of Maddie, maybe he could hear her, she held her hands next to her face and shouted as loud as she could, her face turning red from the tension. "Godzillaaaa!" Her call even echoed through the air a little.

Immediately his gaze was drawn in the direction of her shouts, instantly recognizing movement at the edge of the water as Maddie waved her hands and jumped around. "Over here!" She shouted to him, it seemed to work he fed, each step as he waded through the water provided a small wave that sloshed up over the river, the ground trembling beneath her. Despite the fearsome blue glowing eyes he still had, she felt safe, showing there was no danger. "Easy big guy, easy." She called to him, in a gentle tone. She could hear him growling and rumbling, he was obviously still pissed off and she had to calm him down now.

Carefully she reached out and watched his legs, coordinating herself and I to make sure we were in the right position. Just before the end of the water he stopped, Madison looked up, he was glaring at her, literally with his blue glowing eyes, it was a bit unsettling, his pupils were not even visible, but Maddie remained calm, she knew he wouldn't hurt her. Slowly he bent down towards her, a loud rumble came from him "Easy big one, easy." She said to him calmly, the tension was rising, now it was necessary not to make any sudden movements, now he was right in front of her. As if in a perfectly defined beat he touched her hand with his muzzle and it slid over his skin. It had been a long time since she had met him in person, but she still had a very good feeling of how his skin felt, rough and hard, yet pleasantly warm. Carefully she stroked his chin and showed that she herself was fine, her injuries were now reduced to a few scratches.

"I missed you." She whispered to him and leaned her head against him, being next to him gave her strength, she felt their energies divide again and she let her hair glow in a bright turquoise blue light, the colors of her predecessor, to bring her partner to rest. Slowly the king calmed down again, his eyes no longer gave off the blue glow and his plates stopped pulsing as he gave part of his energy to her.

What Maddie didn't realize though was that Abby had run out and was already coming at her without really thinking, she had gotten scared for her and couldn't think straight, much like Maddie had protected her before, even though Godzilla posed no threat to her.

He noticed the movement in front of him, immediately he turned away from Maddie again and directed his gaze at the girl running towards him and Maddie, his facial expression changed to calm, back to aggression and anger, but this time he didn't light up but just stared at her, which made Abby immediately slow down and freeze, now she realized that she had made a mistake.

"Abby, take it easy, he's not going to hurt you." Said Maddie, slowly moving from Godzilla over to her, she reached her hand forward to keep him at a distance while he still surveyed the intruder. "M-M-Maddie... " "Stay calm, and listen to me, I need you to kneel down." Abby looked away from Godzilla over to Maddie, she had to, no, could trust her.

Slowly Abby lowered herself along with Maddie and knelt in front of Godzilla, a sign that she was not an aggressor. Godzilla nodded and gave a short satisfied puff high in the air, Maddie took one deep breath, that could have gone wrong. "You can get up again." She said to Abby, who was visibly still a bit shocked. As she stood up she saw Maddie still holding her arm, she blushed briefly, and took her arm away. "Ehm yeah, why would Godzilla think I'm a danger?" "Not to him really, more to me, he is provoked much like I was before and wanted to protect me." Maddie turned back to Godzilla and walked over to him and stroked his muzzle again, he closed his eyes briefly and opened them again, he was pleased.

Abby approached her friend, trying to trust him, but she had never been so close to a Titan, even the king of monsters himself. Despite the now peaceful nature he still instilled respect and fear, his gaze alone was enough to make her pulse beat faster than ever, she could still hear her heartbeat. Although she was a little bit taller than Madison, she stood behind her, frightened, and watched her deal with this walking mountain almost playfully, to everyone else and to her he was a monster, to Madison he was a friend.

As Maddie just tickled his chin she looked over her shoulder and smiled and without warning took Abby by her arm and pulled her closer to Godzilla and put her hand on Godzilla. At first she was scared but as soon as her hand was on his skin Abby calmed down. "Is it...what about the radioactivity?" "Godzilla doesn't emit it, it's only stored inside him." "That means it's...safe?" "Yes."

Godzilla gave a satisfied growl, as if he agreed, even though he obviously couldn't understand what it all meant, but in his connection with Madison he understood what she was trying to show Abby and that was a softer side of the titanic king, not the wild beast he could turn into, but a clever and observant creature.

It calmed her and she now stroked Godzilla's nose as well, in a moment of silence, stillness and fascination she noticed something loud pumping, his heartbeat was audible to her. Maddie smiled, her partner and her best friend were getting along well, that made her happy. "So...why do you think he's here now?" Abby asked.

"I don't believe anything, I know it. Something is upsetting the natural balance, as Ishiro used to say, Godzilla always appears when it's in danger." "Ishiro?" "Serizawa." "Oh." Abby hadn't heard very much about Serizawa back then and really only knew of him as the director, she didn't even know his first name. "And somehow we could both sense that yesterday." Madison reached up to Godzilla's head again, "We need to figure out what's going on, stop it, he needs our help to do that too, my help."

"Sounds like a plan, only how do we go about it?" "First we need to get to Castel Bravo, prepare and find where it is first." "I'm more familiar with Maddie jumping into this." Maddie's gave a slight, approving shrug. Usually, like Abby said, she was rather sporadic in her decisions, but she knew she needed preparation, needed to recharge her energy. "Wait, doesn't Godzilla always figure where these things are out on his own?" asked Abby. "He usually does." Murmured Maddie to herself a little, "but it's different here, it's hiding."

Maddie was lost in her thoughts again thinking of her dream, Ghidorah was dead why she had this almost too real dream of him was a mystery to her but she didn't give up the possibility that part of him was still out there and if that was the case they had to find him and destroy it, Ghidorah could not be allowed to rise again no matter what it took. Another reason why she had to prepare first, she needed her full strength to be able to do anything at all, the Iwi said great things were ahead of her, Emma told her she would be Mothra's successor, take her place. After what had happened today, she was now faced with the question of how far she could or even had to go.

Slowly an Osprey flew in, Godzilla looked up, somewhat skeptically watching the approaching object. "Let them pass, they are with us." Madison called out to him. He looked down gave a short loud back and began wading through the water in front of them, he was on patrol looking for possible enemies.

"I guess that means we're heading to headquarters?" "Looks like it." Answered Maddie and while they waited for the Osprey to land she watched Godzilla.
Abby sighed in relief and leaned her arm on her shoulder. "Girl, despite what I know exists on this planet and what I've already seen, you still manage to surprise me." She poked Madison's cheek with her finger, making her giggle a little from it.
Briefly Madison had to yawn, the wind slowly began to pale against them as the Osprey landed, at a regular safe distance of course. Abby glanced behind her, Miki, Mark and Ilene were already heading their way, she gave Maddie a quick pat on the back. "Nah good girl, off to the box and hope Godzilla follows us." "Oh he will, I might need to rest for a minute." Madison yawned once again.

Atlantic, a view hours later

By now they had already boarded the Osprey and were on their way to Castel Bravo.
Mark stepped into the cockpit briefly to see how much longer they would need. "A few more minutes." Said the pilot, he nodded and headed back to the back.

Chen was right next to him to his left, working on a tablet while further back to his right, Madison, Miki and Abby sat together in a row. While Abby was still listening to music on her phone and scrolling around a bit, Madison had already fallen asleep shortly after they took off, saying she needed to gather energy and watch out for Godzilla, whatever that meant. Anyway, he had followed them, peacefully and without any disaster.

Already at his arrival it was like a miracle that there were almost no injured, well, whoever was close to the water had gotten a little bit, supposedly a few people fell down. On entering the harbor, however, Godzilla had apparently unintentionally split a small fishing boat in two when he briefly grazed the surface.
They were slightly injured, but nothing worse had happened. Radiation had not been a problem, but the readings Godzilla had taken just before takeoff were rather strange, nothing really serious or dangerous, rather the opposite actually, but Mark didn't feel quite comfortable about the whole thing. According to what the trackers showed he was in a steady distance about 5 to 10 kilometers behind them. He was fast, very fast, sometimes it made Mark afraid that a creature like Godzilla was looking for direct contact with his daughter.

He still had a hard time explaining it, especially after what Madison had told him, her time on Skull Island, Brook's son, the ritual, the other temple, Megaguirus, which which turned out to be the same monster that attacked Castel Bravo before as well as Rodan, or her powers, which were still a mystery to Mark. For a month through after he return, they had done tests on her, of course only with Mark's observation and consent. In Madison's blood there were radiation levels that showed similar patterns to those of the Titans. Similar to how Godzilla could absorb radiation, store it internally, and then convert it into a new, almost unknown energy that he used for his attacks.

Madison seemed to be able to do this now, but they didn't risk putting Maddie in direct radiation, even though some mad scientists at Monarch had suggested it. Over Mark's dead body, he would never put his daughter in a radiation chamber and risk her life for an experiment. She had the powers, it didn't matter to him where they came from, as long as she was safe.

Even though he had never talked about it directly with Maddie, He, Ilene and Miki had put their heads down so Madison wouldn't have to go through more experiments like that and only at the beginning, which sounded normal, but there were a few, questionable people, at least that's how Mark described them, that Madison wanted to keep completely under control and even use for military purposes. God he would have loved to beat up some of these people, it was lucky that Stenz and Foster were on his side. Foster especially was there to see Mark lose his daughter family and find them again, she could understand.

With Godzilla standing over Madison like a guardian angel, it was not a good idea, and it would have gone against what Serizawa, Emma and Mothra wanted, who Madison had apparently met in a strange dream world, against the balance of nature, which neither Madison nor Mark could allow. This had also hit him a little like a blow when he learned this, even though he knew they were dead anyway. He had in the days where Madison disappeared somehow had the feeling that something was there, which looked over him, maybe it was Emma, at least he had somehow gotten a good feeling.

Even though it was a bit unprofessional from a scientific point of view, Mark dismissed it as magic and the best explanation was that it was an unknown energy that existed in all the other Titans. All of them were different creatures from different times and species, that a human or humanoid could also be affected by this energy was not so unlikely. In the grand scheme of things, it was all about this: Madison now had similar powers to Godzilla and Mothra, and it was probably a way to coexist.

Mark sat down across from Miki and looked at his daughter and smiled a little, she had grown and developed quite a bit and she had only turned 15 recently.

"They grow up so fast." He said quietly to Miki, she looked down at Madison, then him and nodded.

"She is strong and confident and I would be proud to have a daughter like her." "I mean, you're almost like a mother to her anyway, she really likes you, you know?" Miki looked back down at Maddie, who was already snuggled in her arms. Mark could remember a few phone calls and text messages the two of them had and he saw that how fond Maddie was of Miki.

"I haven't seen her this happy in so long, the story with Emma and Boston hit her hard and the 5 years we were apart, that's not so easy to make up for..." "I get that Mark, but I think you underestimate what a role you play for her, you are her father the only part of her family that is still alive, I will always be there for Maddie but some things I can't replace."

For a moment Mark saw Miki's eyes watering slightly, she hadn't had an easy time with children either. She rarely talked about it because it was a deep wound of her past, even when she had made peace with it, it was not easy to talk about it and Mark understood that all too well.

"We're here!" Said Chen, putting her tablet aside to prepare for the exit. Mark went to the front of the cockpit while Miki slowly woke Maddie up. "Come on wake up, we're here." She nudged her gently. Maddie yawned briefly and rubbed at her eyes, stretching her arms up once and craning her neck a little, feeling a slight crack. "Did you sleep well?" Miki asked her Maddie shook her head slightly. "It went like so so..." "Did anything happen?" "No, I'm just a little tense." Madison stood up to do another quick stretch.

Abby took out her headphones and pocketed her phone. "I've never been to Castle Bravo before, so I'm a little excited." Said Abby. "You're going to love it here for sure." Replied Maddie and waved to her to come forward into the cockpit.

They were already on approach above the rig station, and below them the platform opened up, revealing an entrance all the way down. "Woah, you guys have something like that here?" "It is the main base after all." Mark looked over at Abby, who had stood next to Madison.

After a few minutes of low flying they arrived at the bottom, the main part of Castel Bravo. A huge cave, probably once used by Godzilla or another titan as a resting place, now converted into a high tech base for studying titans.

Abby stood there with her mouth open, overwhelmed by the enormity of the whole building and the cave itself, she saw just one of the Muto skulls being moved to another position.

Mark looked behind him, saw the very surprised teenager, and laughed lightly. "We all did that the first time."

Castel Bravo Control Room

Abby was quite intrigued and kept asking Maddie a few questions which she answered, Mark and Ilene walked at the front of the group showing each other the information. "Do you have any idea what this could mean." He pointed to Godzilla ray values that kept changing, going up and down all the time. "I haven't seen anything like this before but other than that there doesn't seem to be anything strange with him, we should still be careful."

They went to the Control room where they were already expecting someone, the others followed them.

"Hi Rick." "Welcome back- Oh hi Maddie!" Maddie immediately walked over to him and the two smashed hands, then fist bumped into each other once at the top and again from the bottom. "Haha, how is my Godzilla Girl?" "Went pretty good, had a little problem with some classmates." "Heard that already, hope they got what they deserved." "Rick!" "Oh come on Mark I was just kidding."

Madison giggled a little while Abby stood next to her a little confused, Rick extended his hand to the newcomer. "Hi, Rick Stanston, we haven't met yet, you are?" "Uh Abby, I'm from Outpost 49," "Ah Nessie's old lagoon, the old girl hardly shows her face anymore." She shook hands briefly and then Rick quickly turned back to Mark and Ilene.

Abby whispered in Madison's ear. "Is he always like this?" "Oh, you get used to it."

"So, you guys flew to New York to pick up Maddie and Godzilla showed up shortly after because she had been fighting?" "Yeah something like that." Said Mark, Rick nodded and made a note of it, "Sounds about right. Okay, Godzilla is on his way here, can imagine why. Oh and F-"

"Dr. Russell, Dr. Chen, there you are." General Foster walked in, they both nodded briefly to her as she walked over to Rick who was already handing her the tablet and she immediately read through it. She briefly looked over at Madison. "Nice to see you again Mrs. Russell." "Thank you." Said Madison with a smile on her face. Abby whispered in her ear again the had already moved behind her, she was intimidated by Foster. "Is that the-" "Yeah that's the boss here, like Barnes used to say. Anything that has to do with the military here goes by her flute."

Foster turned to Mark and Ilene "I have some news, you two are assigned to a mission." Mark and Ilene looked at each other in surprise. "Oh yeah where are is it going?" "Skull Island." A short silence went through all involved, especially Madison was shocked to hear the name of the island again, above all she already knew: if Mark and Ilene were registered to fly there it was something serious.

"Our outpost we established a few months ago had sent a distress call last night, then all contact broke off. We are now sending a team and them there to investigate, if they start now then soon, they should arrive there tomorrow morning already." Mark sighed, actually he wanted to be there for Madison now, but apparently he had to change his plans.

"Okay, Miki take Maddie and Abby to their quarters I-" "I'll go with you." Said Madison.

Everyone looked at her, Miki and Abby were a little shocked, Ilene and Mark sighed, and Foster was surprisingly curious.

"Maddie, I know you want to help, but this mission is too dangerous." "You're telling that to the person who's been on the island for several days?" She told Mark, who unfortunately couldn't say anything against it.

"Mrs. Russell, with all due respect, this is not a mission for children." Countered Foster sternly, with a cold tone. But Madison already knew what she was doing with it, testing her to see if she could stand her own ground. "Yesterday after I had a dream where Godzilla and I experienced the same thing, something seemed to have brought the natural balance off the rails and I would bet it had something to do with Skull Island. A Titan lives there, it could have been something like Megaguirus again."

"I understand your concerns Mrs. Russell, but we still don't have hard evidence for a lot of what you told us." "Godzilla followed me to New York, isn't that proof enough?" Maddie sounded a little angry and confronted the general. The tension rose a little, Foster could get Maddie into some trouble and in turn Madison could cause some chaos.

But when a blue light from the ocean fell on the Control room, the tension was diverted to something else, Godzilla. The alarm had not gone off, he had calmly and gently swum back into his territory and now sensed his partner in front of him. He let out another alpha signal, this time not to intimidate anyone, but to call out to her.

"I'll handle this real quick." Madison walked over to the large glass panel, even though Mark wasn't happy about it, he just let her. No words he could utter would change her mind, especially in the presence of Godzilla.

The other staff and scientists in room were much more tense than Madison, who just walked over to the wall of glass and looked directly at this floating mountain like it was no big deal.

It was like a few months ago, where they met directly for the first time. Carefully she put her hand on the glass and felt how the vibrations from him passed into her hand, she smiled and concerted to make contact with him.

"The others said something happened on the island, it could be what we sensed yesterday. We need your help." She said softly in her thoughts, hoping he could hear her. Sure enough, there was a reply, in the prelude of a soft hum that went all the way through the underwater canyon to the room and the rest of the base. Satisfied with this, she put her hand back down from the glass and nodded to him, whereupon Godzilla made his way to the surface.

With a sarcastic grin, Madison walked back over to the others and turned back to Foster, who had her arms crossed. "So, what do you say, do you want a Titan on your mission to assist you or not?" For a moment Foster said nothing and also gave a slight smile. "I'll send the equipment to your quarters, get everyone ready, they're leaving in an hour."

Madison's quartier, 40 minutes later.

She still had a few minutes before she had to go out to the start, she had already changed, the equipment she got consisted of rather light material, since Skull Island was more of a tropical region. It was a thin jacket from Monarch that she left open because of the warmth, tactical pants and shoes that were better made for exploration. Also a wristwatch that also served as a communication device.

Her old quarters were still vacant, as they had been months ago, almost nothing had moved, Mark had arranged that, should she ever be eager to come back here. Only the refrigerator was empty except for a can of Orange Juice, which Maddie had already opened.

A backpack was also provided for her, which looked exactly like the one she had back on Skull Island. In it was a couple of signal flares and also a pistol that was made only for the signal flares. Probably the person who gave her the backpack hadn't checked or known who was getting it, but Maddie kept that all to herself for now, it could still be useful on the island.

She closed it and sat down on her old bed, just taking a quick breath for a minute. They would have to fly through a night before they got there. Some time to rest. Godzilla would be swimming along behind them, maybe he would have to use one of his underwater tunnels, still he would arrive a little later than them.

It still worried her that Ghidorah might be alive, somewhere out there might still be a part of the one who is many and if that was the case it had to be destroyed no matter what she had to do for it or what it costed.

A slight shiver passed over her, remembering again the events of those days. She had stood against monsters, human beings as well as real monsters for that the others could live on.
When she was in the bunker with Jonah, she thought, he could have killed her at any time, in the time between Mothra's awakening and the fight in Boston she had not been able to sleep a wink, she always thought someone would simply murder her in her sleep. And even after that, she was afraid that Jonah would somehow send a spy or something to Castel Bravo, she had gotten so little sleep in those months. But when Godzilla took her, she was able to breathe easy for the first time, despite the dangerous environment she was in, she was able to find peace as he watched over her. Maybe that was why she wasn't sure which side she was really on, after all she was now an alpha at Godzilla's side which gave her the strength to defeat Jonah.

Completely absorbed in her thoughts, it took her a while to hear the knock on the door behind her, until Abby's voice pulled her out.

"Madison are you there?" "Yes wait!" She got up and opened the door, letting Abby in. "I have to go right then Abby, what's up?" "Maddie, love, please don't go on this mission." "What?" "Please don't go there, I'm scared for you." Madison sighed and rolled her eyes a little, even though Abby's reaction seemed to be completely honest.

"Abby, I've been there before, without Monarch Team, I survived it." "Yeah but what if there's a Titan there like you said? What if Godzilla doesn't get there in time?"

"Then I need to get there even more, I'm the only one who could keep a titan under control right now or stand up to it." Abby sobbed a little, but Madison had to go, it was getting late she was needed.

But Abby grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her. "Hey wait, woah-" and before she knew it Abby, the 16 year old teenager Madison spent the last months with, gave her a kiss. But not one on the cheek or head, no on the lips. She had her arms around Maddie, Madison was so shocked by it that she didn't even try to push Abby away for a while, the kiss lasted maybe only a minute or so, but it felt much longer to her, maybe like an eternity.

Abby let go of her and they looked into each other's eyes, Madison was bright red, this was ther first real kiss. She couldn't utter a word, it took some time to process it all.

"Madison I...I don't want to lose someone I care about." She looked at the floor ashamed, she didn't want to show Madison her love, but she didn't know if it wasn't the last time they would see each other.

"Abby I...I don't know what to say..." "You're probably not into girls am I right?" "No, no, I, I don't...that was my first kiss." Abby looked up at her.

"I, I don't really have any experience with it, neither have I thought about it yet. I like you too, but I've never had anything like this explained to me, my whole life before we met I was homeschooled and there were no other kids I lived with, I don't know how to deal with this now."

"You love Godzilla, don't you?"

"I mean...yeah... I love you too, I'll protect you from danger, but I'm only 15, maybe give me a little time for...this...okay? " "I get it." Said Abby and sighed a little, relieved and disappointed.

Madison looked at her and just gave a fake smile. "I have to go, we're leaving soon. You stay here with Miki and I'll think about it in the meantime." Abby nodded in agreement. Madison walked over to her and gave her a light kiss on the cheek. Surprised by this, Abby looked back up at her and smiled a little again, her heart no longer as broken as just a view second ago.

Before Madison walked out the door, she called out to her, "Good luck, you and Godzilla." "Thanks."