There's nothing much that he loved more than a good fight, and seeing the golden dragon across from him was bringing back memories of his old life, back when he was with his Masters.
He remembered seeing this dragon for the first time, with the sole purpose of subduing him to be brought into Nebulan captivity. He remembered the thrill in his chest as he went to make his first strike. He remembered the burning sensation in that same chest when the hydra retaliated with a Gravity Beam point-blank. Gigan has never fought an opponent with such a wild lust for blood and death, and to this day, it remained the greatest battle he's ever engaged in.
This moment, however, threatened to dethrone that. Because so much more was on the line here, and Gigan knew that there was to be no holding back for either of them. What's worse, he was in no condition for a drawn-out fight and this could very well be his last stand. But perhaps...
His eye was still fastened on Ghidorah's middle head. Perhaps he can sneak a strike as his first blow, end it fast and easy. He certainly had the means to pull it off, a technique that Ghidorah was unaware of as far as he knew. He's never displayed it in front of him, so he would have the element of surprise on his side. But such a move would take a large portion of his energy; even at full strength, it was not something he could do with reckless abandon. In a crucial state like he is in now, it was certainly not something he can afford to screw up...
The silence between them was thickened, as Ghidorah opened those three jaws slowly and deliberately. As if testing to see what Gigan would do. Now or never, here goes nothing!
Gathering his energy, he took a split-second to tell his system where he wished to go before lunging forward to lessen the distance. He saw the lightning erupt from Ghidorah's jaws just as Gigan's body deteriorated. Not a split-second later, he reappeared behind the dragon, and he wasted no time lunging for him with his claw raised...
And he connected with the wrong head, as Ghidorah's necks flailed wildly and one of them got in the way of his attack. Although the dragon was clearly taken by surprise, he recovered quickly and his tails slammed into him, knocking him aside.
He fell back to the ground, luckily on his feet but he was inwardly cursing himself. That was a complete waste of his energy and now he had to be even more conservative about how he spent it. It's okay, it's alright. He can settle on good ol' fashion claw-to-tooth combat. Something he knew Ghidorah was no fan of.
But getting close enough won't be easy as the Gravity Beams were relentless, blasting the air and ground around him in erratic hard-to-predict fashion. The very embodiment of chaos, this dragon, and he loved him for it. Too bad it had to come down to this.
Seeing he won't be getting closer without getting hit, he shot a Cluster Beam towards the hydra, the red laser colliding with a Gravity Beam to result in an explosion. The cloud of dust whipped from them, blocking the view; normally, Gigan would switch to his thermal vision, but he knew this was pointless against Ghidorah's cold hide. Instead, he's forced to go in blind, lunging forward and managing to connect a blade across Ghidorah's chest.
A snarl erupted from the recoiling dragon, who responded by fanning his wings and flapping them strongly. A powerful gust blew away the dust and began pushing Gigan back. But he kept his footing, leaning against the hurricane-force winds and leaving furrows in the ground. Such power in those sails, he LOVED it! His own sails flattened against his back to help reduce catching this wind, and his claws swung down to stab into the earth.
Ghidorah did not relent and only began flapping faster and harder.
He was blown back far enough and still secured against the increased gale, Gigan shot another laser at the dragon. It was weaker than the last few blasts, as his energy reserves were getting low, and it didn't make as big an explosion on impact as last time. But it was enough to stop the dragon, and those six eyes glaring towards him seemed to glow through the smoke.
Trying to keep his breaths steady and discreet, Gigan stood back up, his claws crossing in front of him defensively. But the dragon doesn't push his assault further, yet, and they found themselves in another stand-off.
"Sure you want to keep going with this, Ghiddy?"
No sooner did he say that than the dragon shoots another trio of Gravity Beams directly at him without the wild flailing, and he jumped back out of the way. With a focused blow like that, it seemed like Ghidorah really did not like being called 'Ghiddy'. Well, he should've thought of that before calling him 'half-life'. He lets out a chuckle at the childishness of it all, trying to ignore the pain slowly starting to creep through the adrenaline.
"You haven't even seen half of what I can do, babe," Gigan continued, only somewhat bluffing to buy time to re-coop the energy lost. "It's not too late to run."
Ghidorah still doesn't respond verbally, as he lets loose another round of Gravity Beams directly for him and Gigan jumps into flight to avoid it once more. So damn predictable. But what he didn't expect was a massive chunk of rock rising from the site of impact, far larger than the boulders Ghidorah had lifted before. It was far too big to get out of the way of, and his visor widened as the wyvern swung it towards him. He grunted at the impact and, knowing the hydra's intention to crush him under it, managed to salvage enough of his energy to blast it to smithereens just as it almost hits the ground. He's still subject to its momentum though and he grunted again as his back hits the earth. Fuck, that was way too close but at least he wasn't flattened.
Power at 10%, his system flashed onto his visor. Retreat to the mothership now. But he had no time to reprimand his system that there was no mothership to retreat to. No, Ghidorah has leapt and those talons dig into his arms and shoulder pads, keeping him pinned onto the ground.
At once, he lifted his tail to stab into him, but alas, he was painfully reminded that his stinger was gone. Really, any movement from his tail brought unbearable shocks of pain through his system. Fuck. He glared up at the dragon; he didn't have enough energy for another laser blast, and he could see the Gravity Beams building up in those throats.
But he wasn't out yet, and he opened his own beak and flames erupted from his throat. He knew it wouldn't do much in way of damage as he really only used this on weaker creatures and their flammable structures. Nonetheless, it served its purpose to startle the dragon and he felt Ghidorah's weight shift back off one of his arms. He took advantage to swing at the hydra with his freed claw, stabbing into the scales of Ghidorah's side.
A shriek escaped those throats and the dragon jolted back off of him completely.
The flames escaping his beak petered out, and he pushed himself back up. The two locked eyes and Gigan can see small embers fading off from Ghidorah's manes. As he expected, the flames did little to actually hurt the dragon.
On the contrary, he took notice that his own vision has grown dimmer, as the generator ran low on the energy needed to keep his mechanical parts functional. This wasn't good; he needed to stall again lest he starts fighting blind.
Unfortunately, Ghidorah has made it clear that he was not going to entertain another conversation with him. He really should run; both his system and his own organic instincts screamed at him to flee, but instead, he took the offensive and lunged forward recklessly. In response, Ghidorah rose his middle head higher and his two side heads slammed into him.
Dammit...
He was getting slower and the pain was really starting to take its toll, and hearing the snickering from the hydra, he knew Ghidorah was taking notice.
RETREAT! RETREAT! RETREAT! His system flashed onto his visor. Fuckin'- If it would stop wasting energy telling him to run, maybe his weapons wouldn't take so long to get back online! Or how about using that energy to bring his vision back to normal, that would be great!
But neither his instincts nor his system were backing down, and after another moment of a stand-off, Gigan lunged forward once more...
... before he leapt up last minute to avoid a Gravity Beam and kicked Ghidorah in his chest, forcing him down onto his back. He leapt off again before any retaliation could be made, his flight-devices activating to let him fly upwards into the clouds.
He knew Ghidorah will never let him get away, but perhaps he can stay hidden in the disorientating haze long enough to recuperate.
Then round two can begin.
The second the half-life flew off of him was the second Ghidorah knew he was winning. Damn coward always tried to run when things turned bad and expecting him to stick around to finish this to the end was apparently too much to ask. Unfortunately for this pathetic excuse for a kaiju, Ghidorah wasn't one to let things go so easily.
Righting himself, he glared up towards the retreating cyborg and he shot a Gravity Beam. The half-life glanced back and weaved off to the side to avoid it before disappearing into the clouds. Very well, then. His wings fan open and he takes flight after him.
If the half-life thought he can escape, he was even more stupid than Ghidorah gave him credit for. He will chase him to the very ends of the universe if he had to!
Entering the pink cloud of space dust, he lets out a few more Gravity Beams at the half-life's silhouette, one of them managing to strike one of those sails and causing him to drop a bit. He was flying slower than usual, Ghidorah noted. Normally, both their top speeds were the same; he knew that from past experience when trying to escape the cyborg's attention in vain. But here, the half-life was so weak that the dragon was actually starting to catch up to him.
A smirk grew on all three of his mouths, his wings giving one last downstroke and his talons rushed forward.
His prey must've felt the rush of air and spun around with a shriek, a claw swiping for him and his buzzsaw going off. Ghidorah pulled up at the last second to avoid getting struck and the half-life veered off to try and lose him in the thickest parts of the cloud.
Did he not realize that Ghidorah didn't need to see him to know exactly where he is? His tainted life-force was faint, but it was still there for his crests to sense.
The impulse to toy with this creature was strong, but he resisted it. The stakes were too high for such games.
Instead, he dove straight towards the cyborg's life-signature, claws at the ready and wings folded to reduce his own presence. This time, contact was made as his talons latched onto those sails, and his jaws surged forward to tear the membranes. The half-life gave a surprised cry and Ghidorah's momentum and weight brought them back down to the ground at reckless speeds. The impact was brutal, and it was satisfying feeling the creature's body take the brunt of it beneath his feet.
He gave the half-life no time to recover as, still latched onto his opponent's back, the dragon gave a powerful downstroke of his wings to lift them up... before smashing him back onto the ground under his full weight. He did this again, and again, each time getting another ever-weakening cry from the cyborg. He can see more blood escaping the half-life's mouth, and felt each labored breath the creature struggled to take. He does this one more time before finally stopping, his victim now completely limp.
Stepping off from the cyborg, he glared down at the half-life. That visor was dim and giving the creature a kick onto his back, there was no response. Unconscious again. His impulse to continue the torture was strong, but once more, he disregarded it. He really should end this here and now while he has the chance; he wasn't keen on finding out whatever other 'tricks' this cyborg had up his sleeve.
His left head lowered to grab the creature's neck, his right head soon following. If he gathers all his energy, he should be able to blast this creature's head from his body, ending this whole thing once and for all. But as he starts building the energy in his throat, the half-life suddenly gave a jolt out of nowhere and Ghidorah felt a terrible pain in his middle neck.
He knew immediately what happened.
The half-life was only feigning unconsciousness and in a last desperate bid, has stabbed a claw up into his neck. So deep it was that energy from his Gravity Beam escaped from the wound, causing even more pain and damage to vulnerable flesh. It was too late to bring that energy back into its organ, try as he might.
"I'm so sorry," he heard this strained whisper from the half-life. He felt the creature's legs and tail wrap around him to bring their bodies together before more horrific pain coursed through him. The chest-saw has gone off, ripping through his scales and flesh and going down to the bone. In retaliation, his two heads that were fastened to the creature's neck let loose with every ounce of EVERYTHING the dragon had.
The half-life couldn't even scream.
The buzzsaw came to a halt and in that same split second, something shot out from the creature's chest and sliced through the remainder of the middle head's neck.
An explosion resulted from the two Gravity Beams meeting in the center of the half-life's neck, causing the hydra to release his hold and stumble back. A huge cloud of dust whipped up around the two combatants, and it took time for it to clear and reveal the results of that exchange.
The half-life's head has been blasted right off, and the now-two-headed Ghidorah felt his heart lift with elation as he watched the creature stumble forward clumsily. One step, two, before he fell to his knees, then onto his side to the ground. The body twitched, claws raking the ground and metallic silver blood spilling out from the remains of his neck. The buzzsaw went off one more time before slowing to a stop.
The rest of the half-life's body followed suit and fell still. His life-force was so faint to begin with that Ghidorah couldn't tell if his crests even rewarded him for the kill.
Didn't matter. The sheer joy coursing through him, knowing he was finally free, was enough to make up for it, and to mask the pain for a blissful moment, before...
His vision began to darken on the edges and his legs felt weak. He fell to his own knees but despite knowing his fate, he lets out a cackling laugh in his remaining two heads.
The half-life was dead; he's done it! Even at the cost of his own life, his last few moments spent in freedom was well worth it.
But it wasn't over yet.
Whatever it was that shot out of the half-life's chest had boomeranged back; he heard them before he felt them, slicing through the base of one wing where membrane met scales and causing it to sag limp to the ground. Still Ghidorah kept laughing wildly, even as his other wing is almost severed in the same fashion. The pain continued as more of his flesh is sliced into before it finally stops in his chest. Looking down, he saw there were razor disks now embedded in his body. To the bitter end, the creature still had surprises.
But despite all of this, the sight of his disemboweled belly, and the loss of his wings, the maniacal cackling from the dragon persisted, only softening as Ghidorah's twitching blood-covered body finally collapsed to the ground.
A few more chuckles escaped him before fading into silence. His glassy eyes remained locked on the body of the half-life, both their growing puddles of blood meeting between them.
The pain has numbed, and the feeling of irrational happiness overtook him. He recognized this, and he doesn't fight it as his muscles relaxed. As his vision went black and his crests gave him that massive dose of blissful euphoria for the final time, familiar words played in his mind.
Your name is Ghidorah. You were created to be the ultimate weapon.
The Universe is a terrifying place. It's filled with violent races that seek to destroy those who only wish to live in peace. You will be the savior that fights for those innocents, that cleanses the universe of those dark forces.
You will make it safer, for all of us.
Safer. He finally understood now.
Every race that dared to use him for their nefarious deeds, extinct by his own vengeful claws.
The half-life, the most despicable creature he's ever had the misfortune of knowing, dead.
His own life drawing to a close, Ghidorah can rest in peace knowing that he's succeeded.