Chapter 14: Kraken and Leviathan.
Marcus woke to find Shauna kneeling over him, near panicked.
"Jesus, you were out for over a minute." She said frantically. "What happened?"
"I don't know." Marcus replied, his vision still fuzzy around the edges. His skin felt clammy and his whole body was covered in a cold sweat.
"We need to get you to a hospital to be evaluated." She carefully helped him sit up. "I think you had a seizure and you hit your head pretty good when you fell too."
"No, we can't tell anyone about this." Marcus replied, coming back to his senses. "They arrested Dr. Jacquier because he was under the influence of Mothra. If they suspect I'm under her influence too they're likely to never trust me again. At the very least I'll be shipped back home before you can blink."
"If you are being affected, would that be so bad?" Shauna reasoned.
"I think it's for that very reason I need to stay." Marcus countered. "I've had insights I don't think I would have had on my own, things that have helped the cause. It might be a stretch to call Mothra an ally, but she certainly isn't our enemy."
"If you persist this way, you'll be putting your health at risk." She frowned at him.
"I understand where you are coming from and I care about how you feel, but this is bigger than you or I Shauna. Bad things are coming, and if I ignore what I know, the consequences will be severe." Flashes of Marcus' vision can back to him, giving him a chill. "I couldn't live with myself if I don't try to do something."
"What is coming?" Shauna asked.
"I don't know for sure." Marcus answered. "I can only remember scraps of things from when I was out, but I saw... something. I think it was warning of some kind. I don't know what is going to happen, but I know it will happen soon." The visions in his head were fading fast even as he struggled to remember them. He was forgetting them almost immediately, as if his own mind was trying to tell him they were something he was not meant to see.
In Russia, Akira bounced up and down as the jeep he was in sped away from the soviet camp as the pair of Rodan's continued ravaging it. Vladimir was driving fast and wild, the paleness of his face told Akira he wanted no part of what was going on behind them. Akira's pulse was pounding like a jack rabbit's on on a date. The only one of the three men who seemed unaffected was Major Saito. He remained cold and focused. He helped direct Vladimir back towards the hiding place where the float plane was waiting for them along the coast.
Only a few minutes later, they had put a miles between them and the massacre. They came over a grassy hill and spotted their ticket out of there. The plane was just ahead and they were nearly home free, but then disaster struck. A hail of bullets struck the jeep as it was a mire hundred yards away from the plane. Vladimir was hit in the shoulder and nearly lost control of the vehicle. It spun around as he jerked the wheel. He managed to bring it to a stop without flipping over, but the jeep struck a rock at the last second.
Once they were stopped they spotted the source of the attack. A squad of soviet soldiers were piling out of a patrol truck. Vladimir tried to put the jeep in reverse only to discover that the rock had bent the axle several inches inward. They weren't going to get anywhere quick in the jeep anymore so the three men spilled out of it and ducked behind it and the rocks for safety.
"The tank commander must have alerted their patrols before the Rodans attacked!" Akira shouted to Saito over the sound of soviet gunfire.
The three men regrouped and brought their own arms to bare. They were outnumbered, but the soviet soldiers were only using rifles while they possessed the advantage of machine guns. Major Saito was the first to act. He sprang up and mowed down three Russians trying to work their way around the right flank. Vladimir attacked as well, but was having a tougher time of it with his wounded shoulder. Even so, he also managed to get a kill on the left flank. Akira collected his courage and brought his weapon up, resting it on the jeep and looked for targets in front of him. He found one Russian boldly charging up the middle and made short work of him.
The sudden burst of fire from the two managed to halt the soviet's advance on their position. The other Russian they didn't kill had dropped to the ground for cover. They had surprised the soviet soldiers. It was clear that they hadn't been expecting them to be so well armed, but the advantage of surprise was lost. Now they knew what they were dealing with and would adjust tactics. From then on out, the Russians learned to respect the amount of firepower the Akira and his companions could put out. They wouldn't come charging in again so recklessly.
Although Akira's group had killed five soviets already, they were still outnumbered. Akira figured there were about still ten of them out there. The soviets meanwhile were slowly crawling through the tall grass and re-positioning. They were trying to get to the most ideal firing positions while remaining in cover.
The firefight continued for several minutes. Each side popping up and taking shots at the other. Major Saito gunned down three more and Akira got one more himself during the action. The trouble was they were running out of bullets. The soviets on the other hand seemed to being doing just fine on ammo and were slowly gaining the advantage.
The tide turned when one of the Russians managed to hit Major Saito in the leg. Akira knew then things were going against them and unless something changed they were going to be captured or killed. Major Saito seemed to recognize it too. For the first time, Akira could see him sweating it out in his head, weighing the options.
Their choices were extremely limited. Surrender wasn't an option. Up until a moment ago they could have tried to run for it, but with Saito's fresh leg wound, that was off the table. They were nearly out of ammo, so killing the remaining Russians in the firefight didn't seem likely either. The only thing Saito had left beside his side arm was two grenades. Two grenades against six spread-out Russians was a long shot he couldn't gamble on. The Major finally made a decision and then acted. He took out his side arm, put it into Vladimir's back, and then pulled the trigger, killing him instantly.
Akira meanwhile had be firing at the Russians. He crouched back down after having spent the rest of his machine gun ammo. He saw what Saito had just done and was bewildered by it. His face demanded why of his commander, but the words didn't come. It wouldn't have mattered, Major Saito putted the pin on one of his Grenades and threw it a few yards in front of the jeep into a pile of dirt. He grabbed Akira by the shirt and pulled him in close.
"When it goes off, run for the planes." Saito said sternly to him. Akira nodded and waited.
There was an explosion just a moment later and Akira bolted away from the Jeep, exposing himself to gun fire. He could hear the pops from rifles behind him and felt at least one bullet nearly miss him as it whizzed on by. Behind him, Saito stood up with his pistol and gunned down one of the Russian who was shooting at Akira. When their attention was back on him, Saito began to slump back down behind the jeep for cover, but with his injured leg he wasn't fast enough and he caught a slug in his stomach. It didn't kill him, but it took the fight out of him. Akira was on his own now getting back to the plane.
One of the Russians could see their wasn't anymore resistance coming from the area of the jeep and took off after Akira. The rest of them noted that their comrade was not being fired upon and moved in on the jeep. The first of them on the scene found Vladimir dead and Saito's body face down in a pool of blood. It wasn't clear if he was dead or not.
The soviet soldier kept his rifle trained on Saito's body as he approached, ready to fire at the slightest twitch, but Saito remained motionless. At that point, the Russian officer, along with the remaining soldiers, caught up with him and instructed him to turn over the body while the rest of them covered him. They all closed in with weapons draw. The soldier noticed Akira was holding something in his hand very close to his face, as if he was trying to protect it. He reached in and grabbed Saito's shoulder to pull him over. As he did, he finally saw what Saito had been grasping on to. It turned out to be the other grenade with the pin already pulled out. Saito's hand opened up when he was turned and the safety lever was un-clutched, making the explosive active.
Saito was still clinging to life and purposefully held the weapon to his head. The panicked Russian soldier turned to warn his comrades, who had come in even closer to see for themselves what he was looking at, but it was already too late to save them. The grenade went off and each man was filled with enough shrapnel to seal their fates.
Akira meanwhile was almost to the plane, but the Russian soldier was hot on his heals. The soldier stopped at the top of the hill and took careful aim. He had no time to pull the trigger for the kill shot though. The Japanese soldier that had been left behind with the hurt ankle had heard the firefight going on from the float plane and had been lying in wait with a rifle of his own. He put a bullet into the last soviet soldier's head and limped back to the plane with Akira.
From his hiding spot on the hill, he saw what had befell Major Saito and informed Akira there was no point in trying to go back for him. They needed to escape before they were discovered again. Seeing no other choice, Akira fired up he engine and took off leaving the carnage behind them. In the hours it took them to fly home back, flashes of it all haunted him.
In the days that followed, the Russians found the remains of the skirmish. They couldn't identify Saito's body. His face and upper torso had been blow to bits by the grenade. Vladimir's body however was recovered and they had a file on him. Given the limited evidence they had on hand, it was concluded that the firefight was some type of infiltration operation perpetrated by a White Russian resistant cell.
The Russians never connect the incident to the Rodan's attack. From the Japanese Government's perspective, the mission the entirely a success, causalities not withstanding.
Above the Maginot line, Mothra was flying over the border between France and Germany. Between the recent barrage of gunfire from the French forts and the presence of Varan just days ago, the border guards were still on very high alert. So when Mothra entered German airspace they quickly spotted her and alerted their headquarters. The response from German high command was not unexpected, they immediately scrambled fighters to intercept her.
Less than a half hour later, a force primarily made up of BF 109 fighter craft were converging on Mothra from all directions. She could see the ones in front of her gathering on the horizon like an angry swarm of hornets. She contained to watch them as they advanced on her, growing larger as they moved in closer. It was clear they meant to challenge Mothra and prevent her from advancing any further into their territory. However, she couldn't allow them to stop her.
As the fighters drew near, they began to fan out around so she wouldn't keep track of them all. What the pilots didn't know though was that Mothra's compound eyes had eyes thirty-thousand individual facets, which meant she could see in a nearly three-hundred and sixty arc. She could detect and track every single one of them from her front, sides, and portions of her back simultaneously. Mothra's only blind spot was directly behind her, but considering that her normal cruising speed in flight was just slightly faster than the fighter's maximum speed, they'd have a hard time maintaining any attack from the rear flank for any length of time before she simply outran them.
Mothra had another major thing working to her advantage and that was her reflexes. Her perception of the world was drastically different than a humans. Much like a common dragonfly, she was able to process visual information extremely fast, being able to react to most things within thirty-milliseconds. Humans on the other hand could only process visual stimuli at about one-hundred and ninety milliseconds. Thus, she could see and react much faster than the pilots around her. From Mothra's point of view the planes looked like they were moving in slow motion.
Despite that, the aircraft were closing in on her from all sides, which limited Mothra's options if she wanted to avoid them. As it was, she simply pressed forward and waited for them to make the first move. Two BF 109s were moving in from her right and attempted to make the first attack.
The Japanese had released some information about their experiences fighting against the Rodans to the Germans on the condition that they did not share the knowledge with anyone else, in particular the Russians. As they were both expanding powers, the Germans saw the Soviets as their political, ideological, and military rivals so they were more than happy to uphold their part of the bargain and keep the Russians in the dark.
The German government quickly decided to pass on the information to the head of the Luftwaffe. Knowing that his pilots were about to face off with another flying Kaiju he in turn had them briefed just before getting airborne, giving the flight leaders direct access to the reports about the Japanese air attack on the Rodans. Because of that, the German pilots were careful not to approach Mothra from her rear for fear of being caught up in the same unknown force that had sent so many Japanese aircraft out of control who crossed it.
Unfortunately, the intelligence on the Rodans could hardly be applied to Mothra the same way and that assumption lead to a disastrous start for the Luftwaffe's assault. Approaching Mothra from her flank was in fact the worse possible vector of attack, while striking from behind would have been their safest course.
As the two planes got close to Mothra they got caught up in the massive gusts of air she displaced with the flapping of her wings. Both planes were sent out of control. One of them recovered while the other one fell into a tailspin that it didn't recover from. Neither plane had even got a single shot off. Mothra ignored them and continued forward.
Three more fighter planes dove in from the other side and met with even worse results. Two of the fighters collided with each other when met by the force of wind and their wreckage slammed into the third aircraft just as the pilot had manage to wrestle back control of his plane. The impact sheared one of his wings and he was forced to bail out.
With that, the flight leaders instructed their planes to halt their attacks and stay on standby. Meanwhile Mothra just flew on past them. The German planes regrouped and attempted to pursue her only to discover that she was easily able to outpace their propeller aircraft. She left them safely behind her, crossing the first German line of defense in the sky.
The battle was far from over though. Another cluster of fighters were forming ahead of Mothra and the airmen of the first attack relayed what they had learned in their assault so their comrades would avoid making the same mistakes. They understood that each fighter would only get one good pass at her before she would outpace them and that they needed to avoid her flapping wings.
Mothra looked like a "soft target" to them, so they were certain if they could just get in a few good shots they could at least slow her down. The flight leaders in the second clump of planes began to get their planes into a narrow string formation ahead of Mothra so they could dive in from above and strafe her exposed back.
The first three planes of the formation dove down on Mothra opened up with their machine guns. She saw them coming, but didn't make any effort to evade them. Rather than change course, she allowed them to attack. The planes hammered down, but there was no visible effect on Mothra. She pressed forward losing no speed, evidently bothered by their assault. A second and then a third wave of planes all followed suit getting no better results than the first. Mothra had proven 'not' to be so soft of a target.
This sent the German squadron leaders into the frenzy. They scrambled to come up with another solution while they still could. Mothra by that point had outpaced the second line of fighters, leaving them to trail behind her losing more and more ground.
There was one final group of fighters ahead of Mothra and they were the last thing standing between her and clear German airspace. As before, the pilots from the second group relayed their knowledge. The lead pilot of the third squadron decided they needed to attack Mothra's wings, reasoning they had to be the weakest part of her body.
His planes lined up as the previous flights had and descended on her. Again, Mothra made no effort to avoid them and allowed to them to rain down bullets against her wings. To the pilot's horror, they could actually see their tracers ricocheting off as the hit. What nobody saw were any holes or tears caused by the attack. Mothra's wings had held up strong.
Back in Paris, the city was left in relative peace following Mothra's departure. She had beat her wings soft enough upon her exit to ensure that the buildings below her were left intact. On the other hand, the amount of garbage that had been spread in the streets by gusts of wing were fairly profound. One would assume by the look of things that the entire city had been host to party in the streets.
Clean up efforts had already began, but their greatest challenge would be to remove all of Mothra's silk off of the Eiffel Tower. The French still had the option to burn it off all at once with their flame throwers, but the speediest solution was hardly the safest one, so they instead elected a gradually cut it down with blow torches. Only after it was all down would they set fire to it.
In the United States Embassy, Marcus had returned to duty. By that time, the Japanese had sent a coded message about the radio test being a complete success, proving Marcus' theory. They hadn't mentioned a word about the Rodan's attack on the Russians, but they didn't have to. The news had spread on it own through various sources. Knowledge about the sabotage had been successful kept within select circles of the Japanese Government. Beyond that, only the surviving members of the military who carried out the mission itself knew about it.
Most were pleased with the news of the successful test, but at least one marine was underwhelmed by the news. Particularly in light of what had happened in Russia in the meantime.
"Ok, sure, we can lure them now, but what good does that do us at this point?" Brock asked. "No offense Marcus, it's a wonderful discovery in all, but the Japanese attacked the Rodans with eight-hundred warplanes in the air and failed. Then they attacked them at sea with what... a hundred warships... and failed. The Russians fought them on the ground with an entire army and failed. What good is it to lure them into a trap if we don't possess a weapon that is capable of fighting them? On land, at sea, or in the air they have proven to be deadly. There's no clear weakness."
No one had a good answer for Brock. His point hit home and drained the energy from the room. The only thing anyone could hang their hats on was the fact that the Rodans were a Russian problem for the time being. They could only hope by the time they became someone else's problem that a solution would present itself.
It was at the moment that Lieutenant-Commander Williams asked to talk to Marcus alone for a moment. Marcus agreed, but was nervous. Williams had never gone out of his way to speak with him before. Williams always gave off an air of snootiness around Marcus. Such as it was, he felt like he was about to get a dressing down for his recklessness in the Maginot Forts. Instead there was a certain humility in the Commander's voice when he spoke.
"I wanted to personally thank you for what you did back there in the heat of battle sailor." Williams began. "I don't think any of us would have made it out of there if it wasn't for your quick thinking."
"Sir.. I, thank you sir." Marcus blurted out. "I mean, you're welcome sir." Williams seemed pleased that Marcus was so discombobulated in his response. He smiled for the first time in Marcus' presence.
"I have two children." Williams went on. "When we were in the thick of it, all I could think is that I was never going to see them again." He paused. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, I see what the Admiral likes about you. If you didn't know it, he speaks very highly of you." With that, Williams retreated out of the room. He had said what he wanted to say and that was that as far as he was concerned.
Marcus tried to think of something clever to say in return to Williams, but the whole thing had caught him so off guard that he just stood there like an idiot while Williams walked away.
In Russia, things were going from bad to worse. The attacks by the Rodans had not stopped at the military staging camp. After they were done with the camp flew further east and attacked the train stations at the most eastern portion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. They were likely drawn there by radio signals. The Russians were still frightfully unaware their transmissions would bring the flying monsters down on them. A few local villages also fell victim to the Rodans as their rampage continued through the surrounding countryside.
A day later, the Russians attempted to drive off the Rodans with a massive air assault. They were hoping to pull off something similar to what the Japanese had achieved, but the Russians had a few things working against them. First, they didn't realize the amount of planes the Japanese had lost in that fight. The Japanese hadn't released their causality information to anyone outside of the Japanese government for obvious national security reasons. The Russians were only aware that the Japanese had won from a strategic standpoint, while losing on a tactical level.
The Russians committed four-hundred Yak-1 warplanes to the operation, but quickly realized that the whole thing was a tactical blunder. The assault was not as well coordinated as it could have been, which lead to individual detachments of planes entering the combat zone alone without the support of other air-groups. The first wave was wiped out before the second one even arrived. It was pattern that was repeated with the second. At that point, the commanders at ground control directed the remaining planes to rendezvous in a nearby sector to regroup before proceeding on together.
Again, the Russians suffered for their lack of information. The Rodans were alerted by the mass of radio chattered and were drawn towards the squadrons as they were still in the midst of reorganizing. They tore into the ranks of the soviet planes and downed dozens of them before the pilots even knew what was happening. When it was all over, less than a hundred fighters made it back to base.
The loss of men and material in the East was climbing higher each day. It was so devastating that it started to effect Stalin's war effort in the West. The Rodan's ongoing attacks forced him to divert soldiers and war materials to deal with them that were meant for the campaign in Finland.
The truth was these reinforcements were inexperienced and ill prepared. Stalin knew they stood little chance against the monsters, but even if his men couldn't stop them, he had to at least be seen making an effort to defend his people.
The Rodans attacked at will, leveling town after town, but after three days of terror, the Russians were able to concentrate enough firepower together to make a reasonable stand. Tanks and rocket trucks caught up to the Rodans at a town called Revatograd, which was actively under attack.
The Soviets had finally caught the Rodans on the ground, but it was double edged sword. They had to make the tough choice to attack while Russian civilians were still present as the townspeople were trapped. The Rodans would pick off anyone who tried to break cover and run out into the open. They had the choice between being potentially killed by the shelling of their own military if they remained indoors or the almost certain death of being eaten making a run for it.
The Russian generals at least didn't make them wait long. They quickly decided they need to attack while they had the advantage. They reasoned that the civilians who would be killed in the attack would prefer to die by their hand rather than be consumed by the Rodans.
The rocket trucks moved forward and unleashed all of their fury into the sky. Their projectiles arched up and then began to rain back down onto the Rodans and town alike. The buildings that were hit by the rockets got blown to bits. Almost no structure was left unscathed by the assault. The tanks rolled up and added to the barrage, which only added to the carnage.
The Rodans were less affected by the attack than the town and took to the sky to quickly close the gap on their attackers. Upon reaching them, the Russians lines were once again decimated by the fury of the combined strength of the Rodans. Hardly a machine was left standing when it was over.
However, there was a silver lining. The fight seemed to at least wear out the monsters. When they were satisfied that the Russian assault had been crushed they returned to the sky and retreated back to their nesting ground in the Kamchatka peninsula.
Over the course of four days, the Russians had lost the majority of three armored divisions fighting the Rodans, which equated to nearly a thousand fighting vehicles of various designs and twenty-five thousand men dead or injured. While the Soviets had plenty of manpower to call upon to replace their losses, they however were not an economic powerhouse. It would cost them about fifty-four million dollars in today's money to replace their armor losses alone.
The loss of over three-hundred planes was roughly another fifty-six million dollars stacked on top of an already horrifically costly campaign, which was far from over and would likely to raise the costs even higher.
On the Finish war front Soviet casualties were also mounting. Their losses had reached one-hundred thousand soldiers killed in action and an addition two-hundred thousand wounded. They had also lost over a thousand tanks and every day the Finish position was improving. They were receiving more and more international aid in the form of equipment and volunteers.
The British were openly in talks with the Fins about selling them heavier weapons, which they very much needed to push back the Soviets. The British wished to maintain the status-quo in Europe and the escalating war was becoming more and more disruptive. The Russians were one of the few powers who could possibly be seen as a rival the British Empire, so blocking them from gaining more political power and growing stronger was in their best interest.
Stalin was humbled and embarrassed. The Russians had lost thousands of men and expended two-hundred and thirty-five million dollars for no practical gains in their fight with the Fins and Rodans. Worse, neither fight had an end in sight. He lacked and effective way to combat the Rodans and the Winter War was only to grow more difficult as it persisted.
Russia was politically isolated. As the lone communist power they couldn't get outside support either militarily or economically. The very idea of Socialism was seen as a threat by the monarchies, empires, democracies, and even by fascist dictators of the world. The Russians had no powerful friends to call upon for aid. In fact, the other forms of government would be happy sit back and watch while their new system died in its infancy.
Russia had existed in a near constant state of war since the beginning of The Great War. The February and later October Revolutions, had begun before that conflict had even concluded, and then the Russian Civil War quickly followed the Revolution. During the civil war Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were all able to fight their way to independence from mother Russian, weakening her power and prestige. Many other conflicts followed in turn, each one seeming to spawn another.
The near constant state of warfare and general unrest in the country meant that Russia had failed to keep pace with its competitors in terms of industrialization and modernization and both of those things were key in maintaining costly military endeavors. The Russian economy simply was not capable of keeping pace with the hemorrhaging of rubles of both conflicts were causing. Stalin knew if he persisted with both his country's economy would eventual crash under he pressure.
He couldn't very well negotiate with the Rodans, so he begrudgingly requested peace talks with Finland. In Stalin's mind it was just a temporary setback. He calculated that the Rodans would eventually move on out of Russian territory, either by their own accord or after his generals had devised a way to compel them to leave. Afterwards he could resume his invasion and concentrate all his available resources to crush the Fins.
In North Africa, Kamerus had been raiding the coast of Libya for a couple days. Its path of destruction seemed to be leading it eastward towards Egypt. The monster's pattern was to hit a settlement, almost at random, and then retreat back into the the water. Not a lot of rhyme or reason to it. Kamerus just seemed to hit some settlements while bypassing others.
While it's goal wasn't too clear, it did seem to be on course for Egypt and that got the attention of the British. Egypt was a protectorate of the British Empire. The Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936 had granted the British the right to station troops in Egypt for the defense of the Suez Canal.
The Suez Canal was a vital link to the British holdings in India and was an important strategic trade route. It provided a more direct route between the North Atlantic and Northern Indian oceans via the Mediterranean and Red seas. The canal reduced the journey distance from the Arabian Sea to London by five-thousand five-hundred miles. access to it meant saving a great deal of time, money and fuel.
It was unclear if the monster was heading to the canal or if it was even capable of doing significant damage to it if it was, but as Suez was invaluable to the British and their Prime minster felt they had to take every precaution in protecting it. The British would also be facing a political nightmare if they didn't move to protect Egypt. They would be hard pressed to justify Egypt's protectorate status otherwise.
The Egyptian army was pretty limited in what it could do to defend itself and is was primarily made up of infantrymen. Such as it was, the British mobilized and landed more troops on Egyptian soil. They also moved in elements of the British fleet to defend the coast.
If Kamerus appeared in Egyptian waters, they were ready for a showdown.
In the port of Taranto, the Italian fleet was preparing to deal with Kamerus in their own way. They couldn't allow the destruction of their warships or the raiding of Libya's coast to go unanswered. The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was a man of great ambition and his goal was to recreate the glory of the Roman Empire and dominate the Mediterranean, but that dream could not be realized with a giant monster standing in the way.
Mussolini ordered the recall of all available warships in the Italian fleet to resupply and refit before going back out to hunt for the monster. In particular, several ships were being loaded with the newly developed Neptune depth charges to give them an edge if the monster tried to hide from them below the waves. The only catch was there was a limited number of them. Still, they had enough to be able to effectively utilize them if the situation called for it.
Several cruisers and destroyers had already been outfitted with them, while a select few others were still being loaded. In an ideal situation, every destroyer and cruiser in the fleet would be carrying the powerful depth charges, but the fact of the matter was they simply had not manufactured enough of them to do so yet.
Night was falling and the loading process was still ongoing, but by the next morning all the necessary preparations would be made and the fleet would depart on its mission. Most of the sailors were already asleep, but an Italian Captain by the name of Francesco Garibaldi was walking along the harbor's walkway on the docks with his first Officer Giovanni. The two men couldn't sleep, knowing what they would be up against in the coming days gave them a mixture of fear and excitement. They had grown up with tales of sea monsters from books like the Odyssey and now they were to face a real one of their own. To say they never expected to live to see the day would be an understatement.
Captain Garibaldi was overlooking the fleet, watching the refits get done. The impressive battleships lay at anchor on the black night waters. The moon was full and provided just enough light to get a good look at the gathered fleet. Most of the Regia Marina's battleships were present, including the Littorio, Garibaldi's own ship.
It was Garibaldi's love for ships that brought him into the naval service. That, and he had a long family lineage of military service. Italy had been a hot bed for conflict for fifty years during the reunification wars, which forged the various Italian states into one united nation. A member of his family had been involved in each conflict one way or another. Battle was in his blood.
That night in particular, Garibaldi was feeling a little agitated. He had known all three captains of the ships lost recently. Two out of three of them had been in his class at the naval academy and he had not taken their deaths lightly. He was hardly alone in that, the entire fleet was in an uproar about the incident and looking for revenge.
"Captain." Commander Giovanni pulled at Garibaldi's sleeve. "What is that?" He called his attention to a light just outside of the harbor. The light was a pale blue color and coming from under the water.
"Huh, I don't know." Garibaldi replied perplexed. "Never seen anything like that before." The two men walked to get a better look. One of the harbor's patrol craft had noticed the strange light as well and was motoring over to investigate.
The patrol boat came to the spot where the light was emanating from and stopped. The crew looked overboard to see if they could see the source below. As it turned out, the source didn't give them a chance to find out. Something struck out and hit the bottom of the boat. The vessel rose from the water slightly as it was impacted from below. Whatever it was, it attached to the ship's keel and then quickly dragged the whole thing under.
Captain Garibaldi and Commander Giovanni watched as the ship vanished under the waves without a trace. The only thing that remained was the ripple of the water that spread out from it last position, a portion of it cascading into the harbor. It was then that the light under the water flickered and whatever was producing it started moving into the harbor.
If it was a submarine, there were nets in place at the mouth of the harbor that would deny it entry. As the mass of light reached the location of the submarine defenses, it slowed ever so slightly, but did not stop. It powered its way through and began to surface as it entered the sallower waters of the harbor.
At that point, Garibaldi finally got a look at it. The creature breached the surface and he could see that the light was being produced by the creature itself. To him it looked like a giant blue squid. Its body was Bio-luminous. The other notable feature were its piercing, blood red, eyes. The cephalopod was squid-like in many respects, but with one striking difference. It appeared to be using most of its tentacled arms like legs and was walking upright through the shallows of the harbor. As it got closer, Garibaldi could see submarine nets hanging off of its head. The creature had ripped right though them.
The nets fell off as it moved forward. When the creature reached the outskirts of the inner harbor its body stopped glowing. It didn't seem to want to call attention to itself anymore as it got closer to the ships. The initial shock of it wore off and Garibaldi suddenly started to realize the danger to the fleet sitting at anchor. He and commander Giovanni ran for the motor boats that could bring them to their ship to warn everyone.
As they reached the boats, they could hear the general alarm sounding throughout the base. The whole harbor was starting to stir and sailors began to rush into their battle-stations. The monster had however already reached the sister cruisers Gorizia, Zara, and Fiume before any of their crews were able to ready their weapons.
Captain Garibaldi continued to watch the situation unfold while Giovanni drove the motorboat out towards the Littorio. The first thing the monster did was tear Fiume's A-turret off with one of its strong-suction tentacle arms. Then it smashed the chunk of metal back down into the powerful Neptune depth charges that were stored on the aft section of the ship.
The depth charges ignited in an explosion that lit up the night sky. The stern portion of the warship was blown clean off and Fiume began to sink. Garibaldi noted that the monster had been careful to shield its flesh from the fire. It occurred to him that it could have simply used its arms to smash the explosives, but instead it took the extra time rip off a part of the ship first. That meant it knew the depth charges where explosive prior to attacking, and whats-more, that the creature's spongy flesh was vulnerable to it.
Garibaldi continued to observe as the motor boat got closer to his waiting battleship. The Cruiser Zara was destroyed in the meantime in a similar fashion as the Fiume had been. Again, the creature went after the Neptune charges which annihilated the ship carrying them. Garibaldi was surprised by the creatures apparent intelligence. It was essentially an animal that understood the danger of high explosives, and on top of that, it somehow knew before even encountering them for itself first hand. This troubled him deeply.
Commander Giovanni finally brought their tiny boat alongside the massive battleship Littorio and the two men began the climb up the rope ladder hung over the side to get to the main deck. A third explosion from behind told them that the creature had succeeded in destroying the Gorizia as well.
Captain Garibaldi wasted no time getting up to the bridge where his crew were already in the midst of making the warship ready for battle. The whole crew had been roused and were in position. The third officer had just given the order to load the cannons and below, the gun crews were scrambling to to load heavy shells. Garibaldi briefly commended him on doing just the right thing before re-amusing command.
Meanwhile, the monster had made its way to the Battleship Caio Duilio. It was battleship that was older, smaller, and less powerful in comparison to Littorio, but still a potent weapon in her own right. Unfortunately the Duilio's men weren't ready for the fight that had found them. The ships guns had not been loaded or rotated yet and the monster was right on top of them.
The gun crew for Littorio signaled their readiness to Captain Garibaldi. The captain was delighted to hear it. If they acted quickly enough, they might be able to help the crew of the Duilio. The Littorio's nine fifteen-inch naval cannons were all leveled at the monster, who had just taken hold of the Duilio. Garibaldi gave the order to fire and the crew obeyed.
However, the monster seemed to sense the attack coming and pulled the Duilio in front of it, raising it partially out of the water. Most Littorio's shots were on target, but they slammed into Duilio's exposed hull as the monster hid behind it. Several of the fifteen inch shells punctured the Duilio's hull under the waterline, thereby avoiding her protective armor belt. The shells began exploding inside of the Duilio and one of them must have found its way into a powder keg because the battleship exploded in the monster's arms.
The monster was blown backwards into the water from the force of the blast as the two pieces of the Duilio sank into the bay. The monster quickly recovered however. It did not appear to be injured in the explosion and continued on its warpath toward the next battleship in line, the Giulio Cesare. The Cesare was just about ready for it. Her main guns were loaded and moving into position. The monster sensed the danger and used its long arms to grab the bottom of Cesare and pulled at the keel of the hull, tilting the starboard deck forty-five degrees upwards.
The main guns of the Cesare fired, but because of the angle of the ship, the shells shot up harmlessly into the night sky. With its first attack spent, the Cesare was helpless. Captain Garibaldi could do nothing but watch. His own men were still reloading, fighting the clock to get back the main cannons back into the fight. The Littorio's smaller guns, however, were ready. The opened up in a hail of fire at the monster.
The smaller caliber fire did seem to bother the monster, but did not stop it. The Cesare was jammed, bow first, into the nearby docks by the monster. The bottom portion of the hull was torn out, which insured the battleship would never sail on the ocean again. Satisfied with the damage it had done, the monster left the Cesare resting half on the shore half on the water.
The only remaining Neptune depth charges were sitting on the nearby destroyers and the monster grabbed them off the ships using its tentacles. One by one, it began to lob the explosives at the remaining four battleships. The first couple came at the Littorio and all were a near misses. The force of charges hitting the water was enough to set them off and the top deck of the Littorio was showered by water from the resulting explosions.
The second volley came at the Littorio's sister battleship Vittorio Veneto and one of the charges exploded near the base of her hull at the waterline. The blast torn open a hull breach allowing water to pour in. The damage wasn't very extensive though and the damage control teams were able to seal off and contain the flooded sections, saving the ship.
Th Battleship Andrea Doria faced a similar situation when it was hit, though it was a smaller battleship and the hull damage was a little more extensive as the charged landed even closer. Still, the ship was salvageable. The last battleship, Conte di Cavour wasn't so lucky however. The monster's aim seemed to be getting better with each try and the final shots were right on target. Conte di Cavour was hit with three massive explosions. One hit the bridge and destroyed much of the ships superstructure and the second hit just below the armor belt and torn open the bottom of the ship, and the third destroyed the rudder. She began to sink, her surviving crew spilling over the side.
The situation seemed desperate for the Italian fleet, six warships had been destroyed and two more heavily damaged. But there was about to be a turn in fortunes. The monster had expended the available explosives near to it and was now in the shallows with no cover to escape. The Littorio's main guns were also ready to fire again, as were the Vittorio's.
Both ships unloaded their main armaments at the monster, who was near helpless against them. It dodged as best it could, but it was hopelessly exposed. In addition to the battleships firing at it, the Cruisers Trento, Boizano, and Trieste were also firing at it from from the next bay over. It was caught in a crossfire.
Captain Garibaldi saw one of his ship's fifteen inch rounds directly hit the monster's bulbous head. The monster's entire body shuttered from the impact and the resulting explosion tore out a large hunk of its flesh. The monster was taking more and more significant hits as more ships joined the attack. Finally the monster decided that it had enough and began to retreat into deeper water. As it did, fire from the remaining warships punished its body, blowing more and more pieces off of it. Bloodied and beaten it finally slipped beneath the waves and escaped the onslaught of fire.
In Germany, Mothra had long put the planes of the Luftwaffe behind her and was continuing further and further into the Third Reich's airspace. Air-defense flak cannons had tried to take aim at her here and there along the way, but whenever they did, Mothra simply sped up. The guns on the ground could not keep trained on her for long before she was out of their range. They were designed to shoot down slower propeller aircraft. Nothing they tried deterred her.
Mothra had been flying for over an hour when her excellent vision finally picked up on what she was looking for. Below there was a trail of disturbed fields and snapped trees. As soon as she spotted the trail, Mothra changed course and began to follow it. She flew for miles until she was on the outskirts of a city. There were signs of a battle below. The ground was pot-marked with the aftermath of explosions and the wreckage of fighting vehicles.
As it turned out,the city Mothra had arrived at was the German capitol of Berlin and the wreckage she had found was the German army's last ditch defense line to prevent Varan's advance into the city. They had clearly failed and the monster was already cutting a path of destruction in the cityscape.
Mothra arrived perhaps a twenty minutes after the attack had begun. Most of the city was still intact and the German military was still firing on Varan inside the city. The German's had Varan more or less boxed into one area. German command had the foresight to place heavy cannons at certain intersections in the city so that Varan would have to endure heavy cannon fire to the face if he wanted to get pass them. The blockade of cannons had stopped Varan from advancing any further forward, but had also forced him towards the Reichstag building in an attempt to get around them.
As Varan advanced towards the German's seat of Government, Mothra passed above him. She flew over a building near his right shoulder. As her shadow loomed over him, he stopped dead in his tracks and took notice. Mothra's sudden appearance had caught him off guard. All he could do is watch her from below.
Mothra meanwhile banked gracefully to her left after passing Varan and then rounded on him coming face to face with him from the safety of several hundred feet up. As she hovered above, her mouth opened and squeaked down to him. Varan responded by roaring back up at her angrily. He used his tail to smash a building to his left down in an obvious threat display.
Mothra seemed unimpressed with the move and continued to squeak at him. Varan responded by thrashing his tail a second time and leveling the building to his right. Whatever Mothra's initial aim had been, she appeared to grow impatient and immediately attacked Varan. She began to flap her wings hard and released a yellow/gold powder.
As it floated down towards Varan, he instantly knew he wanted no part of it. He retreat backwards and then ducked behind a building, getting out of the immediate line of fire. Mothra ceased using her powder and advanced to pursue Varan, but when she approached the building he was hiding behind he suddenly lunged up at her.
Varan didn't achieve enough height to tackle Mothra head on, but he did get close enough to allow the spines on his back to graze one of Mothra's wings. Following his attack, Varan crashed back down to the ground, collapsing another building under him. Once he recovered he looked up to see the damage he had done. To his shock, Mothra was still airborne and stable. He had expected his attack would cleave her left wing right off and that he'd be seeing her tumbling to the ground. Instead, Mothra was right above him and he noted only a scratch where his spikes had made contact.
Panicked by the ineffectiveness of his attack and Mothra's close proximity, Varan used his tail to swipe up at her in an effort to gain a little distance. Mothra backed off to avoid the attack, but his tail never had too much of a chance at landing anyway. Varan meanwhile used the time his feint had bought him to come up with a new method of attack. He quickly secreted some of his poison and let a portion of it build up on the tip of his tail. Once he felt like he had enough, he flicked it in Mothra's direction, sending it flying up at her. Varan had gotten lucky and it was heading right for her face.
Unfortunately for Varan, Mothra saw it coming and used her quick reflexes to maneuver out of the way. The clump of goo arched up past her and then landed somewhere in the city behind Mothra. Varan tried to follow up my using a building as a spring board to crash into Mothra. If he could just touch her he could turn the fight around.
Seeming to understand the threat, Mothra used her powerful wings to beat down at Varan as here came up. The force of wind she produced sent Varan crashing back down and rolling through the streets. Mothra then pressed in close and continued to beat her wings aggressively. Varan dug in his claws to maintain his position, but the hurricane level winds Mothra was producing was blowing anything not make of concrete away. Cars went flying into buildings, park benches took flight, and Varan's defensive toxin peeled right off of his skin. Most of it splattered onto the building behind him.
With Varan's slime gone, Mothra eased up on her attack. The hard flapping took a lot of energy and she could see Varan still had a lot of fight in him. In fact, the second the wind died down Varan charged forward and lunged onto a building close to Mothra. He swatted at her with his sharp front claws. Mothra was again able to react just in time to avoid the attack, and in turn, beat Varan with her gigantic wings.
The building Varan had jumped on had barely been able able to hold his weight to begin with, but the added pressure of the battle taking place on it was finally too much. It buckled and sent Varan once again to the ground.
Varan seemed to understand how precarious his situation was becoming. Mothra was able to react to his attacks faster than he had been expecting and she seemed to have and answer for everything he had throw at her so far. He had one last trick that might turn the tide of battle in his favor. He found a suitable spot for what he had in mind and then ducked down behind another building, waiting for Mothra to approach. Once she had, Varan sprung his trap.
He jumped onto another building to gain a little height and then jumped a second time, extending the flaps between his arms and legs. As he became airborne, he tried to steer himself towards Mothra only to find that she was already coming towards him. Mothra had much great ability to control her flight and was able to jink out of Varan's flight path so that she came up and under him in midair.
Mothra used her head and rammed into Varan's expose underbelly, knocking the wind out of him. The force of the collision knocked Varan off course and out of the sky like a rock. Varan landed hard on his back stunned. Mothra gave him no time to recover this time. She was on top of him within seconds. Her poisonous powder drifted down on Varan's body. He realized what was happening and began to kick his legs in an attempt to flip himself back over. However, his spines however were stuck in the ground where he had landed and prevented him from easily righting himself.
Trapped and having nowhere to go, the powder clung onto Varan and within seconds his thrashing began to weaken, then stop. Varan was paralyzed by Mothra's poison and the fight was over. With her opponent subdued, Mothra came down and latched onto his tail. In an impressive feat of strength, her tiny little legs clung on to Varan's body as she lifted him off the ground and began to carry him out of the city.
Mothra continued to carry Varan north for hours until she had come to the Atlantic Ocean. Once there, she dropped the still unconscious Varan in the water below. and just like that his rampage through Germany was over.
Akira lay in his bed staring up at the bottom of the bunk above him. He had just arrived back on the Akagi following his mission to Russia. While the mission had been a success, he did not feel good about it. The memories of it would likely haunt him for the rest of his life. Vladimir had been killed, Saito had been killed, he had almost been killed himself, and for what?
It all seemed unnecessary. The way Akira saw it, the Russians never had the slightest chance of winning against the Rodans. So, in his mind, they didn't need to help it along. The reports coming out of Russia painted a pretty good picture of what was happening as a result. Villages burning and thousands upon thousands dead. Deaths he was at least in part responsible for.
The worst part of it was Akira wasn't allowed to talk about it. He couldn't vent any the pressure of anger or guilt that was building up in his chest. He could only sit in his bunk and stew about it. Replaying the mission over and over again in his mind, fixated on it.
The Japanese fleet was setting back out for open water for exercises. While they had taken a beating during their own fight against the Rodans, they still arguably had the strongest Navy in the pacific. However, that was only because the American fleet was divided up between two oceans, otherwise they would claim that honor. Such as it was, they needed to maintain a state of readiness.
They had been out for two days already and on the first the fleet had run across something very troubling. Something that could not easily be explained. They had found a small Japanese coast guard patrol craft drifting in the open water. Typically a ship of its size usually carried a crew of twelve, but only one man was found aboard and he was in sorry shape. He was dead, but not only that, but he appeared to be mutilated. His flesh was partially fused to the metal railing he was found clinging onto. The rest of the crew was missing.
The ship seemed otherwise undamaged, so it wasn't clear why the rest of the crew would choose to abandon ship. Just as puzzling was the mystery of what killed the man left behind. He smelled like he had been cooked right there on the deck and his hand and face were blackened and burnt where they had made contact with the steel. He was so badly burnt that he almost had no features left, and let the area around him showed no sides of obvious sign of damage from a fire.
The sailor's body was pried off of the railing, leave chunks of flesh behind, and later burned at sea. The incident sent a chill through the crews of the fleet as the eerie story spread. Everyone was a little edgy ever since. Most of the men had seen death by this point, but it was the mystery; the fear of not knowing what happened, that made it so hard to dismiss and move on.
One of Akira's bunk-mates, Takeo, returned from playing cards with his buddies. Akira didn't know him well and mostly ignored him, but even so, could sense the young sailor was unsettled. He removed his shoes and socks prepared to climb into his bunk to rest for a while. However, before he could, there was a shuttered throughout the ship. It was enough to get Akira's attention. He sat up and looked over to Takeo who looked around him, clearly not sure what was going on. Next, they heard the metal hull of the ship creaking. Takeo took a step back and Akira noted a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face. Both of them knew something was awfully wrong.
"What is that?" Takeo asked Akira with fear in his voice.
Akira didn't get a chance to answer. Before he knew it, Takeo's hair was standing on end and only a second later his muscles were seizing up, flexing uncontrollably. The muscle spasms were intense and Takeo tried to scream, but only made a gurgling sound. Akira could see arch of electricity jump from the top part of Takeo's teeth to the bottom. Takeo's feet were cooking against metal plating on the floor and Akira could smell burnt flesh which made his stomach turn as he watched.
It was all over in seconds. Takeo fell to the floor and was instantly dead. Akira sat there in shock, processing it. He didn't know what to do. He was shoe-less himself and didn't dare stand up on the metal floor after what he had seen. He didn't understand what was happening. Before he knew it, the entire ship shook and was tilted off kilter. Akira almost spilled out of his bunk onto the floor. After that, he knew he couldn't very well stay where he was. His shoes were under his bunk and rather than step onto the floor to get them, he hung himself upside-down to retrieve them.
Akira grabbed two pairs of socks and put both of them on just to further insulate himself before lacing up his boots tightly. The noise, rumblings, and rocking throughout the ship continued in the meantime. Akira carefully put one of his boots on the floor. Once it had been there for a second without incident he began to make his was out of the bunk-room and into the hallway.
Once there, he could hear the shouting of men throughout the corridor. The alarm on the bridge had been triggered as well, adding to the already chaotic situation. As Akira made his way out of the crew quarter section of the ship, he saw other men who had been killed much like Takeo had been. Other sailors were uselessly trying to help them, but any man who had been affected was far beyond help by that point. Akira moved on.
The shipped rocked as he continued on and Akira was careful not to be throw off balance. If he was forced to reach out with his bare hands and touch either side of the metal walls of the corridor at the wrong moment, it might be the last thing he ever did. He was right to skittish, only a moment later another jolt of electricity shot throughout the whole ship and a few more sailors who had not figured out what Akira had were caught exposed to it. The smell of burning flesh was filling up the entire area, along with the honorific shrieks of men who were seeing the effects play out first hand. Akira himself was trying his best to ignore it. He needed to stay focused if he was going to get out alive.
Finally, he reached the flight deck. Most of the men there were still alive, but confused about what was going on. The ship continued to rock, which kept everyone off balance. Worse, the rocking had only increased in intensity, which was causing planes and bombs to move around in their bays in the hanger, putting the men inside at risk.
The shifting around paused for a moment and Akira could finally get his bearings again. But no sooner had the ship come to a stop than something came crashing through the hull, puncturing right into the flight deck. And it wasn't just one thing, there were multiple areas of breaches through steel frame all at once in what seemed like a well-coordinated assault.
The shock of it took Akira off guard, but it only took him only a moment to realize what had happened. The things poking through the breaches were sharp mounds of discolored ivory. Taken as a whole, the pattern was unmistakable. Something huge had bitten into the ship and its teeth had penetrating the armored plating of the hull.
That realization was horrible enough on its own, but it was about to get worse. Some of the teeth had sunk in under the waterline of the ship, and because of that, seawater began to leak in around their edges. Akira had a moment of awful clarity and could see what was going to happen next. His legs started moving on instinct, taking him to a stairwell across the deck that would take him up.
Sure enough, the teeth soon retracted out of the ship and water rapidly poured in through the punctures. It flooded in so quickly that several men closest to it were instantly swept up. The rest tried to retreat to escape as Akira had.
Akira meanwhile, had just reached the stairwell himself. He got up about six steps before the first cascade of water reached the bottom. Several members of the flight crew reached the stairs a moment later, but were already too late. A third shock-wave of electricity hit the ship and they were still standing in ankle high water when it surged through them.
Akira ran into a major problem upon reaching the top of the stairwell. As per regulations, the watertight steel bulkhead door had been sealed when the alarm had gone off for general quarters. Akira could easily open it, as the latch was on his side of the door, but he'd have to do so with his bare hands. If there happened to be another electrical attack while he was doing it, he'd be a goner. as he stood there thinking it over, he could hear the buckling of the ship's hull. Water continued to build in the stairwell below him, slowly but surely making its way up to him. He was trapped.
Seeing no other choice left, Akira carefully touched the metal wheel that would release the seal with the tip of his finger. Once he knew the door was not presently electrified, he went to work quickly cranked the wheel until there was a clank indicating the door could be opened. He pushed it open and barreled through until he was clear of it. He went a little too hard though and ended up falling forward on onto wood planking of flight deck. Akira popped up as quickly as he could, scared for his life. In his agitated, fight or flight state, forgot that wood does not conduct electricity very well.
Akira got to his feet to find the flight deck under siege. A huge monster had wrapped itself around the hull of the ship in several loops like a snake trying to strangle a victim. It appeared to be succeeding. The Akagi was was listing and riding low in the water. Between the seawater she had taken on and the added weight of the monster the ship was going to sink any minute.
'Is this happening because of our sins?' Akira asked himself, only yards away from the massive beast.
From what Akira could see, the monster had dull greenish-blue scales that ran the entire length of its body. It could be described as snake-like, save but a few notable features. First, it had a yellow strip of what appeared to be hair running along its back. Second, it had tiny arms and legs that it was using to keep a tight hold on the ship. Third, it had a pair of horns on either side of its head, two long whiskers, and a mouth full of teeth in place of simple fangs. In short, it had the look of an Asian dragon.
Akira didn't have time to study it though. It was already clear that the Akagi was doomed. The carrier shifted again as the monster struggled to crush it. The creature roared towards the sky and the atmosphere around Akira seemed to change. Strains of electricity jumped between the hairs on the monster's back as they stood on end. The metal frame of the ship absorbed the jolt, while the wood Akira stood on was relatively safe.
The ship seemed to slip further down and the remaining aircraft on the top deck slide overboard. Akira considered abandoning ship by jumping directly into water, but realized all too well he would die in the water just as quickly the next time the monster used an electric attack. It was then that Akira spotted a life boat that was being readied by another surviving sailor. He rushed over and helped the man make the final preparations to lower it down. They did have one issue though. Ordinarily the life boats had to be lowered down by someone who was still on the ship.
As the situation stood, there was only the two of them and neither would want to stay behind to lower the other. But Akira's companion provided a solution. He had foreseen the obstacle some time ago and while Akira had been trying to escape from below decks, he had fetched a sword belonging to one of the officers.
The sailor unsheathed it while Akira grabbed the sides of the boat to hang on for dear life. With one good swing of the exquisite blade, the two men had a wild ride down to the water. Luckily for the two of them, the drop wasn't nearly as far as it should have been. The Akagi was riding low in the water, so the impact didn't break any bones, though it was still rough.
Since Akira's companion was standing when the trip down had begun, he actually spilled over the side when they landed. Akira was quick to grab him and pull him back in. The boat tipped a little, threatening to spill both men back into the water, but Akira managed to keep his balance. From there, they grabbed the boat's paddles and got as much distance from the Akagi and the monster as possible. The whole time they could see their former home sink foot by foot under the water until it was gone.
After the Carrier's fate had been sealed the monster released it and surfaced to look for another target. Akira could only hope that he and his new friend were too small to bother with.
If any of you happen to be following this story on T.K. for the pictures, which I do recommend, I'll be posting it sometime later. I still have to do all the miniature work, take pictures, edit them, etc... etc... Point is, it entails a lot of effort, so it may or may not make it up today.