(Chapter 5: Moving Forward)

(Location: Outpost 62)

Jia sat on a comfy bed in the safehouse at the outpost in which Ilene Andrews resided at during her time at the outpost, the majority of the base had been abandoned with only her and the deaf child remaining there. There could be many unwarranted dangers, but the linguist felt confident that Kong would protect them if any such threats would make attempts to harm them.

Speaking of Kong, Jia happened to be laying on her stomach with a brown crayon. Having been granted permission by Ilene to draw in empty journals that she would more than likely never use. It was obvious that she was drawing the mighty ape, evident by a large brown colored figure with long arms and short legs, and a wide upper body. A small pink marking on the top of his head was to resemble Jia herself.

Ilene Andrews emerged from the hallway with a gray colored blanket, a white cord sat on a nightstand next to the bedding.

This is an electric blanket, it is supposed to keep you warm. I hope it can soothe you. The linguist signed as she connected the cord to the outlet on the blanket, Jia grabbed hold of the dial and turned it to the maximum amount of warmth it could provide, which was a level five.

Jia's face shifted from one of worry into an expression of relaxation, even letting out a peaceful groan of satisfaction as she felt the comforting warmth start to overtake her entire body that was covered up by the blanket.

How does this feel? Does it help? Ilene asked her adopted daughter now with a look of concern, a sweet smile from Jia brought closure to those unsure feelings, which in turn, also brought a smile to the linguist as well.

It feels warm, like sitting in front of a fire at night. It's relaxing and peaceful. Jia signed in response as she let out a yawn, which got Ilene to playfully roll her eyes as she yawned too.

Don't do that, it's contagious. The linguist signed with a laugh following it, this got little Jia to giggle some.

My apologies. The deaf child signed.

No worries. Ilene answered.

A trembling shook the walls of the safehouse, and a loud mournful roar was heard coming from the outside. The sound must have came from a few miles away but it was thunderous enough to shake the room they were in, as well as the entire building. The sorrow filled howl bouncing off of the small mountains of Monster Island, and off of the many trees.

Ilene sighed as she looked to the ground, she knew already what had happened. Kong had arrived back at the Iwi village to see everyone had been slaughtered, and he was angry, sad, and now fearful of being alone once again.

He's worried. Jia signed with a sad expression being reflected in her eyes, and the linguist was taken aback by this.

If Jia was deaf, and couldn't hear a single thing, how could she tell that Kong had roared? How could she even tell what his emotions were without seeing him?

Sure, the safehouse shook from the roar, but without hearing the actual sound, it could have been mistaken as a tremor or a slight earthquake, or even a subterranean creature about to rise from the ground beneath the safehouse, but no, Jia knew exactly what happened!

Ilene was speechless, and she couldn't even bring herself to ask Jia the questions she now had on her mind. The only thing she could do was just agree with the child.

I know. The linguist responded.

Jia would go back to drawing in the journal, she had been doing such things ever since they arrived. The young girl liked to draw, she was very creative and her imagination knew no boundaries. Ilene went to go make her a cup of coffee to try and calm herself down from the chaos that had been unfolding, a few years had gone by peacefully without any threats harming the Earth or the nations of the Earth, but now tension was starting between Monarch and it's rival companies once again, and that was never good, because titans usually always get involved some way or another.

As she placed her mug into the machine, patiently waiting for the coffee to start pouring into it. She would alert a few of her friends that worked in other outposts of what had went down at Outpost 62, she knew that her warning would be spread like wildfire amongst the officials, and without a doubt the G-Team would get involved as soon as they could.

Hey, I just wanted to let you know that Outpost 62 has been attacked by Alan Jonah and his crew. They also ransacked the Iwi village on this island, I've only found one survivor. A little girl named Jia. The linguist typed to all of her co-workers, and she also forwarded the message to scientists at Outpost 04.

Within a matter of minutes, her emails and DM's were flooded with replies, and calls were coming in so fast. She didn't have time to answer every single call, but she decided to go through her messages.

She came across a message from Madison Russell. The woman who was roped into a mass extinction plot in 2019 which also saw the death of her very mother, the woman who had lost her father when Floyd Sanders of the Earth's Rightful Rulers hijacked the GDF's MechaGodzilla in the destruction of Outpost 54, she had become a scientist. The woman wanted to join the Skull Squadron, but she had sadly failed her training as it took too much of a toll on her, especially on her PTSD from 2019 when she was then nothing but a young teenager.

Thankfully for Madison, she had become one of the top scientists. It would surely make her parents proud to see how far she had come along, and she had also learned some martial arts skills to boot, having passed her combat training, but failed when it came to the more advanced stuff when it came to the training for the Skull Squadron.

Alan Jonah and his men, dammit...those bastards will never leave us alone. I'm sorry to hear that, Dr. Andrews. Our base has come under attack too by Apex, and a titan we don't have the name of. replied Madison to the text sent by Ilene.

The linguist was shocked to see that another outpost had come under attack not too long after hers was, something was at play here. It seemed that the ERR and Apex were done messing around, and were going for the killing blow to Monarch by striking at the new flagship facility and an important outpost on Monster Island.

You've got to be kidding me...something isn't right about this situation, did you stop the fools from Apex? Ilene typed back.

No, they're using some kind of technology that could protect their helicopter. We've got the titan away though, we're about to survey the damage it left behind. Captain Gordon is pissed. Madison replied.

He's got good reason to be pissed, what the hell is Apex wanting from that base anyway? Ilene asked, wondering what Apex was trying to do by sending only one helicopter into infiltrate the Inner Sanctum.

They got a hold of Kong's DNA, I have no idea what they plan on doing with it. I'm fearful, knowing genetic engineering is becoming a thing. Madison replied, this caused the heart of Dr. Andrews to jump into her throat.

She had to put the phone down, and take a step away for a moment to think about, and to take in what Madison just sent her.

Those bastards.

Those sick bastards now have hold of Kong's DNA, the mighty ape was labeled as a 'titan of interest' following his battle against Godzilla in 2020, before then, they didn't think too much of him. However, his popularity grew once he crafted a new battle axe, and seemingly became an ally of the King of the Monsters, a Robin to Godzilla's Batman.

Compared to many other titans, Kong was one of the weakest on the list, but he made up for it every step of the way with his intelligence. He had a unique ability to get stronger and more durable every time he fights a titan, as well as his ability to get a second wind in fights that he is losing.

Monarch and the GDF truly didn't know what or how many vials of titan DNA that Apex or the ERR contained, which is what scared a good few of the G-Team. They were considerably worried about their rival companies creating a monster that cannot be stopped, combining genes and DNA of titans to form an abomination would be disastrous if the wrong one was to be created.

Can I call you later? I need a moment to just...think. Ilene typed after getting her bearings somewhat straightened out, Madison understood her. She always knew that Dr. Andrews took business with Kong intensely, she had been around him for an entire decade, first at Outpost 33, and then at Outpost 62 following 33's destruction.

Following her text to Madison, she would wait for her coffee to finish brewing before sitting at the table in the kitchen. She was highly nervous about what Apex would do, and what the plan was with the ERR troops still being somewhere on Monster Island. This entire new campaign by their rival companies seemed to be centered around the guardian god of Monster Island, why was he important to them?

So many thoughts ran through her head at one time, it was overwhelming. She ran her hands through her brown hair as she sighed, you could only have peace for so long in this world, it wasn't long before the second coming of the titans, and in a brand new world with massive beasts and governing bodies trying to defend or destroy them, it made the situation all the more worse. A nervous sweat began to break out on her forehead, when she would get worried, she would drink some of her coffee to try to calm down.

A beverage filled with nothing but caffeine would do little to no good, and only increase her worries much more. The linguist stood up, and began to pace around the house while taking occasional sips from her mug. Her mind not leaving from all that had gone down already, two outposts under attack, and each one being frantic to catch up to what the enemy was planning or doing.

Jia peeped up to see what her foster mother was doing every time she walked in and out of the room, confused as she seen the worried expression on her face, but she too didn't want to become fearful, so she kept her face in the journal, scribbling and coloring pictures of Kong and her together.

The more time went by, the more comfortable the child grew with the warm blanket around her. Soon enough, all troublesome thoughts were expelled for now as only peace filled her mind. She felt safe once again, with Kong on the island, and under the protection of a foster mother, she believed that they would be alright for a little while. The relaxed body, and mind of Jia was enough to lull her to a deep sleep, gently pushing the journal away, and placing the crayons on the nightstand.

When Dr. Andrews made it back into the bedroom, she noticed that Jia was in a deep slumber. Not being focused on coloring the pages like she was minutes ago, the linguist was intrigued to see what the child had scribbled.

Every page seemed to be a log of her adventures with Kong, implying that she had a bond with him of sorts. There were pages where her small pink colored body was sitting on his head, shoulders, and sometimes even carried by the mighty hominid. There were pages were they spent time in flower fields, admiring the scents of the various tropical plants. There were pages where it shown them drinking from ponds together, each page told a story.

Some pages contained captions, where Jia would write down the way she could tell Kong was angry, sad, worried or happy.

I feel the vibrations of his heartbeat, they are more intense when he is angry. It is helpful to see his face, but with the way the ground trembles when he roars, I can tell. When he is happy, he hops from mountain to mountain, or goes for peaceful strolls through the fields, he is at peace there. Tears flow from his eyes like the falls when he spends time with the skeletons of his parents, or when an innocent beast dies to unruly hands. Jia had written on one page, showing her feeling the ground as there were several comic like panels of Kong's face going through various emotions.

The pages brought a smile to Ilene's face, she had never before seen such a bond between beast and mankind. However there was another page that was one of the last that Jia had scribbled and drawn on, this one caught Dr. Andrews' attention the most.

My mother always told me that I was special amongst everyone else, that my capabilities of bonding with Kong have been passed down from generations before me. It was said that my grandfather had a similar relationship with him, and it is said that my ancestors had bonded with Kong's kind before Kong was even born. For that reason, I feel gifted.

Apparently Jia's specific bloodline had a relationship with Kong like no other villager had, which brought Dr. Andrews back to the theory of telepathic bonding between the titans and humans from long ago, perhaps even pre-historic humans. It was like the Shobijin twins with Mothra, and Vergil Snow with Gamera.

Meanwhile, further away from Outpost 62 was Alan Jonah and what remained of his crew. The group had taken shelter on a high rise cliff that offered them a grandiose view of the island, the top of the cliff was about one hundred feet in the air which protected them from creatures on the ground, their only threat would be those of the air.

"Got a message from Miss Ford, said that they were successful in bailing Miss Maia and Mister Martin out from the Inner Sanctum's prison, and they also have secured Kong's DNA once more." Floyd informed Alan Jonah as he was looking out into the valley.

"Excellent, we shall camp here and wait for her to send the DNA to the Apex lab in Seattle. Hopefully she'll be able to pick us up by nightfall." Jonah replied with a satisfied grin on his lips, impressed with his protégé's work.

"Will we survive until then?" Floyd asked.

"I have confidence that we will, we hold the high ground, we hold the advantage." The former m16 agent told his right hand man.

"Confidence will only get us so far."

"Have faith."

(Location: Outpost 04 'Inner Sanctum')

(Time- 7:30 P.M.)

The sun was setting casting beautiful colors of bright reds, oranges, and purples across the Californian Coastline. Surveying of the damages caused by Baragon had went underway not even five minutes after the beast vanished, efforts to put out any rogue fires was a struggle, but the job had been done. Several work was lost, but the most important files and items were kept in the heavily guarded location within the underwater wing of the base, the entirety of the bio-labs were scorched, but another lab was within the underwater wing, as well as a prison wing.

Three hundred troops had died trying to battle against Baragon, tanks, trucks, jeeps were demolished, and littered the ground on the surface level of the base. Charred remains of downed aircraft were all over the ground as well. A construction crew had been called out to the base to fill in the holes caused by Baragon's attack that shot fire forth from the deep hollows.

An important staff meeting had been in session for around an hour, Captain Gordon had called in scientists, and other personnel of the base to ask them questions. Now he had called in the Skull Squadron. Gordon sat at the head of the table, while Kenny Anderson sat at the other end. On one side of the table sat Vergil and Carson, while on the other side, Sam and Laura were seated.

"Everything is being repaired as we speak. Did any of you know of any warning signs that an attack was coming?" Captain Gordon asked to receive only silence.

"Anyone can answer, I can keep you folks in here all day if I've got to..." He said sternly, finally it was Sam Brody to break the silence.

"No, and I don't understand why a titan would just show up to attack us. It must have been from the Hollow Earth, it's not been classified in our logs and we don't have any bio-acoustics on record." The soldier replied.

"Titans have come up from the Hollow Earth to attack before, remember those two titans that fought in Oakland?" Captain Gordon answered.

"We would probably have seen it coming, but the spire has been destroyed. We don't have any cameras monitoring what is directly below us at the moment, just at the sides where we could see the tunnels." Kenny said, finally gathering up the courage to speak.

"I don't get why it was going nuts, it's like it wanted to destroy the base but we've never infiltrated on it's life before. Something isn't right." Laura said softly.

"Yeah, no shit." Captain Gordon grumbled.

"What about that Apex helicopter, it seems that you two failed to destroy it. What happened up there, you better have a damn good explanation..." He continued, glaring at Carson Michaels and Vergil Snow.

"We tried shooting at it, but our bullets didn't connect. It was as if some force field was around the helicopter." Carson Michaels began, Captain Gordon grunted, not buying his answer, but then Vergil Snow chimed in.

"We even tried missiles, and they still didn't do a damn thing to the chopper. I've got a hunch that the titan attack, as well as the attack by Apex, are all somehow related together."

"I'm not entirely buying that." Gordon said with a raised eyebrow.

"You don't have to, but we know what we saw. There is no way that helicopter could have survived a missile strike, but it did." Carson said with a roll of his eyes.

"Although I am skeptical of your claim, I do think we need to do some infiltrating of our own." Captain Gordon grunted as he leaned back in his chair.

"I've been doing some research on the deep web, and found out through anonymous sources that there are various Apex bases located deep beneath the ground in locations that are either obscure, or hidden in plain sight." Kenny spoke up, having an idea starting to form in his head, Captain Gordon chuckled at this.

"The fucking deep web, like you can trust any so called 'anonymous' source on there. It's probably people talking out of their ass."

"Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but it says one of the bases is located underneath the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum." Kenny replied, Captain Gordon seemed intrigued for but a moment.

"Still not buying it, we must remember that these people have been one step ahead of us in the past. This time I want to flip the script, I'm aware of at least two of those bases being located up in Alaska, and one of them is in Pensacola, Florida."

"So in a race against time, you send us to bases that are: One, across the entire country, and two, at the very top of the country. This isn't a great idea, man..." Kenny groaned as he buried his head into his hands.

"Well unless you can prove to me the existence of these bases, you are going to infiltrate at least one of those two, man..." Captain Gordon said, mocking Kenny towards the end of his sentence before leaving the room to go smoke a cigar.

The door swung open again almost as soon as he left, a cigar being in his mouth.

"Oh, and by the way, you, Madison, and Sam are going on the trip." Gordon grumbled through his teeth, his eyes staring directly towards Kenny before he left again, closing the door, and moving down the hall.

"Great, he sends just three of us on this mission. Me, a scientist who failed the Skull Squad training, and a rookie at best." Kenny sighed with a roll of his eyes.

"Hey, at least I can fly a jet." Sam retorted.

"I can too pal, flying a damn jet is the least of your worries when it comes to the titans." Kenny fired back as he stood up, leaving the room to head to the computer lab to hack into the Apex sight like he had done before, intent on proving Captain Gordon wrong.

(Location: Monster Island)

(Time- 9:30 P.M.)

A few hours had passed, with Alan Jonah patiently waiting for the arrival of the helicopters to the island. He had instructed them to fly as high as they could in order to avoid being attacked by Kong as he looked down over the edge of the cliff his group of men had camped on, a faint light began to shine brighter as the sound of rotator blades were heard coming down from above.

A grin came to his face as he saw a few UH-1 Iroquois start to lower down to the trees to pick up the soldiers that were stranded following their botched mission to kill Kong.

"Took ya long enough!" Alan Jonah said as loud as he could to Alison once her chopper landed, being playful instead of saying it with cruel intent.

"I had a meeting with Dr. Walter Simmons, he told me about some of his plans. He has a 'Plan B' he's mentioned, and he won't tell me what it is. He's being cryptic." The blonde said as she began to help Alan Jonah wake the troops up. The pilots from the other helicopters that had came along with Alison also helped the two out.

"Of course he's being cryptic, I don't think he's trusting our plans." Alan Jonah groaned in annoyance.

"He's always been that way, he's rogue, just like Ren." Alison replied.

"What about Ren?" Floyd asked as he approached the two.

"Nothing, I'm here to save your asses from this island and get back to the mainland." Alison taunted Floyd.

"What about the mission? Our task was to kill Kong, not abandon it!" Floyd screamed in frustration, becoming disgruntled.

"We aren't going to take him down at this point, but according to Walter, He has plans that could be compatible with what we're trying to accomplish." Alan Jonah explained, causing Floyd to sigh.

Then came a loud roar from across the island, the mighty howl of Kong reverberated off the many hills and mountains, reaching to this very cliff where the soldiers had been taking refuge. The gargantuan hominid had detected the arrival of unwanted guests with his telepathic capabilities, and could see where they had landed.

"He's coming. We must move swiftly, swiftly!" Alan Jonah barked, and it was a frantic scramble to get everyone on board.

They could hear the large ape's thunderous footsteps getting closer, the guardian god of Monster Island wasn't about to have the enemies of Monarch or the intruders to his territory leave without coming off unscathed.

Kong remembered this cliff all too well, it is where he first came into contact with Gunpei Ikari and Hank Marlow back during World War 2, and it was where he was touched on the face by Mason Weaver with James Conrad by her side during the 1973 mission to his very island. Back then he was the size of the cliff, but now he towered over it. He could take out the entire squadron with a single smash of his hand if they were still landed, but now they were well in the air over Kong's height of 360 feet.

The mighty ape could see the flashing lights of these helicopters as they climbed higher, and higher into the night sky. He could see them, and they could see him as well.

"He's getting pretty damn close!" Floyd called to Alison who was flying the chopper in which him and Alan Jonah rode in with a few other soldiers.

Some of the soldiers fired towards Kong with their machine guns, but it didn't matter, Alan Jonah knew that they wouldn't work on him. With a simple lift of his hand, the soldiers halted their attack.

"Sir, we're trying to protect ourselves!" Floyd screamed in defiance.

"Don't you realize that those guns don't work on him?!" Jonah barked, the pounding steps of the hairy brute only grew more intense as time went by, his furious huffs and snorts became increasingly loud as well.

"All aircraft increase altitude, we must not allow ourselves to get hit by-" Alison's sentence was cut off when a loud explosion came from around twenty yards away, a huge gust of wind sent their chopper spinning through the air out of control.

"Everybody hold on!" Floyd exclaimed as the chopper rattled violently as it spun erratically, prompting Alison to activate additional controls to her specific helicopter. A loud, droning hum was heard as a piece of burning shrapnel was launched towards the helicopter.

"Fuck!" Floyd screamed as it appeared the burning rubble was headed straight for the opening on the side of the helicopter, but to his relief, a blue flash was seen once the debris was within twenty feet of the aircraft, and it was sent tumbling straight down into a lake far under them as they were around four hundred feet in the air at this point.

"What the hell?!" He screamed in a mixture of excitement, and confusion. Another helicopter was sent spinning their direction after another massive gust of wind blew by them, the other helicopter's rotator blades were destroyed, causing the aircraft to go tumbling towards the ground!

"This shield of yours is only going to hold us for so long!" Alan Jonah shouted.

"I'm aware." Alison replied calmly, in total control of what was going on.

Floyd took a peek out of the opening to see what was going on, he watched as Kong took his massive axe, and downed a chopper. The impact of the massive melee weapon turning the aircraft into a ball of flames within the air as the brutish hominid stared at his handiwork with nothing short of pure disdain, Kong locked eyes with the other helicopters that were climbing higher, and higher into the sky. He knew eventually that they would be too out of reach, three choppers remained out of the seven that came in. The one that was currently the highest up was the one in which contained Alison, Alan, and Floyd, as well as two other troops.

Kong growled viciously as he took a few steps back, and his fiery amber eyes narrowed as he tried to calculate how hard he should throw his weapon of choice, intending on hitting the leading helicopter.

Floyd was keeping a close eye on the movements of the super sized simian, and noticed that Kong was staring directly up towards them.

"You might want to jumpstart this damn thing into hyper drive or something!" He warned as he noticed that the titan was starting to get a running start towards a small mountain, having a bad idea on what Kong was about to do.

"On it." Alison was heard saying as she began to mess with the controls, pressing two buttons, and then pulling a tiny stick beside those buttons. Two latches on the underside of the helicopter slowly opened, and bright blue flames shot forth from them, giving the aircraft a huge boost!

Kong would continue his attack as he sprung off of his feet, landing on the mountain, before jumping off of it again to get a great vertical leap. As he was airborne, he cocked his arm back, and hurled the axe towards the helicopter with a defiant roar!

"I don't think that damn shield is gonna save us from thi-" Floyd's sentence was cut off when the helicopter suddenly shot to the side, latches had opened up on the right side of the chopper had slid open, and blue flames shot forth from jets hidden under the latches, boosting the aircraft to successfully evade the massive axe as it missed them by a total of fifty feet, the huge gust of wind sent the helicopter violently spinning around again, but thanks to the shield, no damage would be taken if it did crash land.

Kong's eyes widened, and his mouth opened up slightly in surprise to see that his axe somehow didn't strike the intended target. His surprise was quickly filled in by rage as he bared his teeth with a horrible growl, ripping a massive tree from the ground, crushing the roots, and stripping it of the leaves. He then lobbed it towards the chopper again, only for it to miss once more!

Kong slammed his fists on the ground furiously before letting out an enraged roar, pounding his chest at the retreating intruders. The choppers were at a height now that he couldn't reach if he jumped, so he decided to give up. At least they were leaving his island.

As the helicopters climbed higher into the sky, they were able to evade the storm system surrounding Monster Island by flying over it, dropping altitude when they were in the clear to do so.

"You mentioned a Plan B from Walter Simmons, what is his Plan A?" Alan Jonah asked out, raising his voice just loud enough for Alison to hear him.

"Plan A is whatever he is wanting to do with Kong's DNA, his Plan B also involves his DNA. Thankfully, we don't have to lose more of our men by infiltrating another lab, we can just duplicate the DNA." Alison explained.

"It's time we move forward with plans, our mission won't end until Kong is dead." Floyd said, to which Alan Jonah agreed with by giving him a nod of his head.