Disclaimer: All rights to Godzilla and its characters, names and places belong to Toho Studios. All rights to Godzilla (2014) and its characters, names and places belong to Legendary Entertainment. The author of this story owns nothing; this story was written for entertainment purposes only, not money or profit of any kind.

Chapter 6

After the meeting concluded, a military officer informed the group that a helicopter had been arranged to escort all non-essential personnel off of the Saratoga and back to the mainland. Ford took his father aside and informed him that he intended to get back home to San Francisco to his wife and son as soon as possible.

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you, Dad," Ford said. "All this time, I-"

"It's alright," Joe said, giving him a sad smile. "Go home to your family, Ford. Keep them safe, whatever it takes. I wasn't able to save my family. You still can."

Ford frowned at this, his expression one of surprise and slight betrayal. "You're not coming with?"

"No," Joe responded. "I think I could be of more use here, where I can help find that creature. I was right about this MUTO before... Maybe I can help figure out where it's going. I'm staying on board, if they'll let me." He looked over to Dr. Serizawa, who nodded in surprise.

"We would welcome any assistance you could provide," the Japanese scientist agreed.

"Don't worry about me, son," Joe said to Ford. The father and son embraced once more, both promising to see one another again once this nightmare was over.

The massive flight deck of the Saratoga was bustling with activity, far more than usual. Rows of jet fighters were being checked and re-checked for action, and crews and personnel were going about their orders. Ford was being led across the tarmac by an airman towards a military helicopter where the non-essential personnel from Monarch were being loaded in.

The flight crew member informed Ford that they were now fifty miles from Hawaii, and that he could catch a flight to San Francisco from there. Upon boarding the helicopter, Ford shared one last meaningful look at his father, who had come up topside to see him off.

Once in the air, one of the soldiers handed Ford a military sat-phone to call his family to let them know he was all right. As the phone continued to ring, Ford tried to think about what he could possibly say about what he had experienced.

Elle's voicemail answered and Ford sighed.

"Elle, it's Ford," he said, exhaustion creeping into his voice. "I, uh- I don't know what they're saying on the news. There was an accident in Japan. A bad one. Dad's fine, but he's staying behind. I'll explain when I see you. I'm headed to Hawaii, I'll try to catch a flight from there. I'll see you and Sam soon."

Joe watched the helicopter carrying his son grow smaller and briefly wondered if he should have gone with Ford, but he couldn't leave this behind, yet. He turned to reenter the Sarratoga where he found Serizawa and Graham waiting for him. They had also come up to the tarmac to see off the Monarch members that had left with Ford and the others.

As they made their way through the corridors, the discussion immediately returned to the MUTO.

"We knew the MUTO was having an effect on everything within a close proximity," Graham said. "But we didn't know that it was capable of harnessing this same power in an EMP attack."

'Let's just add that to the growing list of things you people didn't know,' Joe thought bitterly, but he chose to bite his tongue knowing that further antagonizing these people would help no one.

Serizawa led them back to the command deck where Emiko was busy pouring through the data on one of the terminals allocated to the Monarch team.

"But you did, Mr. Brody," the English woman continued, brushing her bangs from her eyes. "You predicted it. Please, anything that can help us."

"Not directly," Joe replied. He went on to explain how he had been listening in on the site remotely with frequency monitors.

"That's when it dawned on me; the signal from fifteen years ago; it was an animal call. Your pet MUTO was talking."

Joe removed his jacket and slung it over a nearby chair and ran his hands through his auburn hair before taking his glasses out from his breast pocket.

"Then the damndest thing happened," he continued. "I heard the signal return."

"It returned?" Serizawa eyebrows shot up, surprised. "Were you able to determine where the return signal came from?"

Joe shook his head, explaining his equipment wasn't exactly the greatest quality. "But I wracked my brain over it; started studying echolocation and bioacustics."

"If the MUTO was talking that day, then what you heard must have been something talking back," Serizawa concluded. He turned to Vivienne and told her to check the data again and search for a response call.

Turning back to Joe, he asked if he would be willing to help Emiko go over the available data on the MUTO, to which Joe nodded. "With your expertise in nuclear energy, perhaps you can help us uncover more about the creature."

Within short order, Monarch had gone to work, with Serizawa and Graham sifting through the recordings of the MUTO's pulses, using Joe's recovered data as a baseline. Nearby, Joe was sitting next to Emiko at her workstation, as she was bringing up the biological studies conducted on the creature over the years.

Brody was the first to admit that he wasn't a biologist, but he knew nuclear energy and physics. If the creature fed on nuclear energy, perhaps there was a weakness to be found. He held a pair of headphones to one ear as he listened to the bioacustic recordings that Monarch had of the creature.

As the weight of the events of the past twenty-four hours sank in, Joe felt something stir in him that he hadn't felt in some time. He was beginning to feel less like the sad and pathetic man he'd seen staring back in the mirror every day for the past fifteen years.

The relief of not being thought of as a madman; of actually having been proven right was like the dark veil of his past had been lifted from his mind. The prospect of working with a team of scientists again was exhilarating. He felt like he was in his element, once again; like he was coming back to life.

He glanced over to where Serizawa was seated. The man was focused on the screen in front of him as he typed on the keyboard, while Vivienne quietly read off numbers from a sheet in front of him as they attempted to find the MUTO return call.

Despite knowing next to nothing about the pair, he could see they worked well together. And yet he couldn't fathom the Japanese scientists philosophical view of the situation that the rest of Monarch seemed to share.

Exhaling through his nose, Joe returned his focus to the screens in front of him. Emiko was going over what Monarch had collected about the MUTO's biology while it was still cocooned around the reactors at Janjira.

"Have you been with Monarch long?" Joe asked hoping to learn more about his new colleague.

"About five years," Yamane replied. She winced as she adjusted the sling. Her arm was still causing her pain.

"My mother is American and my father is from Odo island. It's a small island near the Bonins. My grandfather, Kyohei Yamane, was also a paleontologist. I guess it runs in the family. Dr. Serizawa discovered me in university."

Emiko had always been fascinated by her grandfathers theories about dinosaurs. He was of the belief that there were creatures that dwarfed dinosaurs, and that they still lived in far off places. Emiko had made it her mission from a young age to prove her grandfather's theories.

She had been kicked out of two universities for her very vocal opinions of science. Fate had yielded an unexpected reward for her when she met Dr. Serizawa, who was giving a lecture on the possible effects of radiation on the ecosystem during the Devonian Age.

He had been impressed by her theories of ancient super-species, and offered her a place in Monarch.

She smiled wistfully at the memory of her own early days with the organization.

She had escorted Dr. Serizawa and Dr. Graham on a short expedition through the dense tropical forest of her home island after she had joined Monarch. She had surprised Serizawa by revealing that Gojira had been a part of her islands history for as long as people have lived there.

Gojira was worshiped and feared by the inhabitants of Odo, and in times long past they would sacrifice young virgin girls by tying them to rafts and cast them out to sea to placate the mighty dragon of the sea.

Thankfully that tradition fell out of favor, Emiko shuddered.

Interest in the old legends of the sea dragon waned over the decades until 1954, when the legend came ashore one night during a particularly fierce storm. Her grandfather had been a young man when it happened and the experience left a mark on the young man who then dedicated his life to the study of dinosaurs.

Her grandfather had been distrustful when the Monarch scientists of those days came to Odo island in search of information about Gojira, fearing that any information shared would be used to destroy the creature; which is unfortunately is what happened.

Emiko had inherited her grandfather's love of paleontology, but she trusted Dr. Serizawa. While some may have been skeptical of her story, Serizawa and Graham trusted her and so she led them to the spot where Gojira made landfall.

A huge footprint, over sixty-feet in diameter, perfectly preserved. Covered in vines and protected by the dense forest canopy that had grown around it in the ensuing decades. Emiko recalled the look of profound amazement in Serizawa's eyes. Her little expedition and knowledge of Gojira earned her a place on Serizawa's team at Janjira, under Graham's supervision.

Over where Dr. Serizawa was sitting, he was cycling through the collection of the MUTO's pulses, trying to find a match to the data Joe had collected. Vivienne was standing beside him, leaning over the monitors. It stood to reason that if Joe had recorded a response fifteen years ago, there must have been one at some point before the MUTO hatched.

"Keep scrolling," she said quietly. She thought she had seen a connection while sifting through the readouts. "Near the end; before the final EMP."

A beep signaled they had found what they were looking for. A faint signal along the same frequency, similar to the MUTO's, but from a very distant source.

"There," he said. "Something responded."

Honolulu, Hawaii

Ford Brody was seated in the rail transit light metro at the airport waiting to be brought to his terminal. Sighing heavily as exhaustion slammed through his skull like gunshot. He rested his face in his palms as people filed in around him, some sitting down, others getting up to depart.

Night had already fallen and for many in Hawaii, it was another beautiful evening. A time for parties, delicious food and romantic evenings. They were all blissfully unaware of the danger that a gigantic bug monster was flying somewhere. Maybe that was for the best, Ford couldn't say.

The irony was not lost on Ford that this one one of the few times he'd been to Hawaii, and he was not here for fun. He should be here with Elle and Sam on a nice vacation. God, that sounded nice. He made a vow to take his family somewhere nice once the danger had past. Once the MUTO had been dealt with, maybe his dad would even join them.

"Aloha, and welcome aboard!" a voice over the intercom announced. "The train will begin moving shortly."

Ford sat up and pulled out the toy soldier he had taken from his old house. As he held the old toy, he looked up to see a small boy of Asian decent around the same age as his own son curiously eyeing the toy. When he realized Ford had seen him, he shyly grinned and hid beneath his baseball cap.

Ford chuckled at the display, as it was something his own son, Sam, did.

The door to the train car suddenly closed, startling the child, who immediately began crying from his mother. The child's parents noticed what had happened and frantically hit the door and calling his name. People looked around, confused as to what had happened, some noticing the boy had been separated from his parents.

Ford jumped up and tried to reassure the parents that he would stay with the boy and ride the train back around to bring him back. As the metro took off down the track, the child began running down the length of the car in a futile attempt to reach his parents. Ford followed the boy protectively.

He sat the distraught child on the seats and knelt in front of him, promising to bring him back around to his parents. Hoping to calm the child further, he held up his old toy soldier. The boy looked back and forth between Ford and the toy, and the gesture seemed to have the desired affect, as he happily reached out and took the toy from Ford.

"Take good care of him for me," Ford chuckled. "My mom bought that for me."

Ford sighed and sat next to the kid. "I'd better not miss my flight, kid."