Chapter 5: Philhellenism

Aegean Sea

October 31st, 2026

Four days of painstaking research and data collection finally paid off with Girain and Stuka being transported to the Aegean Sea, their departure due to long range travel reason saw them swimming from the Blacksite in the Pacific Ocean towards Hellas. They crossed over the Suez Canal relatively easy using the barge and an escort flotilla to bring them into the Dodecanese Islands where they were left to swim freely.

Four of them, Shiryu, Chikiryu, Girain and Stuka, prowl the Aegean Sea, scaring away dolphins and sharks and other assortment of Marine wildlife while they swam under the surface of the ocean looking for traces of a lost civilization. "Alright according to intel gathered by Sam, we should be coming up on Nisi Gigantes. Island of Giants." Girain briefed them as they surfaced on the isle of Giants beachhead. There are some ruins here that baffled historians and archaeologists for decades and it was no jokes to any of them.

As they wade ashore, the Mecha Titans saw that the island had the ruins of a Minoan-Mycenaean civilization styled settlement. Like a cross of two different cultures, the buildings had white marble stone pillars and columns similar to Classical Greek architect but lack some of the most defining touch of realistic and idealistic proportions and scales of the human body. Instead these seems to have stylistic touches with their less detailed depictions of humans.

While then some other structures were made with Minoan Architecture style in mind using mudbrick, flagstone, tiled roof and other details such as wall decors showing bullfighting by athletic champions of the Minoans mainly from Crete with pools and ponds decorated with various drawings showing dolphins, marine wildlife. "Overlord, this is Athena, we're on the island now, you're seeing this?" the camera stream was fed to Lt. General Grady who was onboard the USS ARGO with Rick and Sam watching them.

"We see them, solving mysteries and rewriting histories for sure. Hard to tell from a camera though, anything to note about sizes?" General Grady asked while watching their streams. "Si senor, from the looks of those, I think they're meant for us to play with." Chikiryu remarked cheekily as she went over to one of the temple's remains to check it out with Shiryu but once that got close they saw that the statues bear the appearance of a Godzilla holding a Greek spear and Aegis shield predating the Hoplon shield.

They flanked the doorway into a now roofless temple with a half broken statue of Godzilla and a king sitting on its laps like the one in Vilcabamba. Chikiryu and Shiryu stopped and blunk a bit seeing this as an odd sense of devotion humans reserve for an otherwise gigantic and destructive savior. "Whoa is that… a temple for the chunky guy? That is actually pretty cool now I want one for me and Rexy." Chiki joked cheekily with Rex grimace at the thought. "I don't think the public would tolerate construction of our own shrines, let alone cult temples." Said Rex.

Girain and Stuka were separate from Shiryu and Chikiryu on another side of the ruins where they inspect a palace ruins with torn down stone walls of a garden that had now overgrown with vines wrapping around pillars and terraces. "These structures seem to date back to the Greek Dark Age, carbon dating suggest somewhere around the 12th Century BC." Stuka observed while zooming in on the Greek ruins and took photos of them using his helmet's optics.

His Orion Sword commanders Joe and Grey watched remotely from their base in Central Asia noted the details of the photos seem to rewrite the history book on civilizations of Greek Dark Ages, further photos forwarded to them showing parts of the city having things like Amphitheater and oddly enough, a massive bronze chair on a hilltop of the island.

"Stuka, any ideas what that monument is?" Grey asked over the comms prompting Stuka to shake his head sideways. "Negative sir, judging by the size it is roughly 100 meters tall, roughly my size but the resource for it must be draining to say the least." Stuka mused as he walked over to the chair with Girain as the two inspected it they found that the bronze had seen better days with signs of rust and tears. "Must have needed massive amount of cleaning constantly. Some of the rust were from raining." Girain knelt down inspecting the chair while Stuka out of curiosity sat on it and began to experience an odd sensational rush of power.

He saw the city in a panoramic view, the palaces, bathhouses, amphitheater, Agora, remains of docks and temples. He was sitting on the throne of a King, a Godzillian King of a Greek civilization from the Bronze Age and possibly into the Greek Dark Ages with signs from other time periods. "The panoramic view is… pleasant. Beautiful. I can see the planning of the city in square grids and linear paved roads." Stuka stated.

Girain being next to Stuka the whole time stood next to him and looked down at the city below and awed at the strangely convenient piece of furniture and how it was placed to give them the feeling of power and authority. "They are his pet." She quoted the late Serizawa, finding his words to be resonating with their present. "The late Serizawa was right regarding the coexistence of Titans and humans, however the question is how?" Stuka remarked curiously while remaining seated and stiff on the throne.

"That there is the billion dollar question." Girain retorted as she then began to take photos of the ruins and Stuka on the throne with her optics, one of the photos showed General Grady that the throne was meant to let them see the bullfighting arena that Minoans were known for. Judging by the placement of the city's buildings, the throne was built first along with the palace and bull fighting arena before the rest of the city was constructed.

"Looks pretty neat, you two are in the VIP seat for all the major events." Grady commented with a smirk while holding a lit cigar to enjoy the fascinating architecture and the two giant mecha being in intimate proximity to one another. "I know you're watching, I hope you enjoy the show Grey." Grey indeed heard Grady's taunt over the coms and made a sly smirk at the playful attitude of General Grady.

"Touche general, touche indeed." Grey remarked under his breath and kept his attention fixed on Girain as she was seen helping Stuka explore the island's architect. But he kept his focus on Girain the most, he took careful mental notes of her body language, behaviors towards Stuka. He saw that Girain's attentiveness towards Stuka, combined with her taking a crouch stance to take photos of him and the throne's various depictions of Mycenaean and Minoan wars and conquests, presumably of Troy.

At the base of the throne, there were Linear A writing by Minoan people but Girain couldn't translate it as the language remained too cryptic for archaeologists despite the ages. She and Stuka noticed however that the area around the throne seems to have a much higher than usual amount of grass and floral life.

He knelt down and zoomed his view in on the flora, noticing that these weren't known types of wild grasses but rather oddly irradiated grasses, much larger and offer greater density in terms of softness. So much so that he began to move his prosthetic leg along the grasses, his talon like toes burrowed in between the blades of grass feeling them rustling. "Pretty much understandable for both you and Shiryu." Said Girain with a sympathetic sigh looking at his curiosity taking hold. "Does this affect my operational capabilities or that of Shiryu?" He asked dully not quite understanding what this all meant to him.

"Don't worry about it Stuka, it doesn't make your aim anymore inaccurate." Said Girain and Stuka cocked his head to the side rather confused before standing up from the throne and continued their patrol/vacation tour. The two of them arrived at what appeared to be a cave entrance by the island's mountain side with various Greek writings on its walls.

These don't appear to the Greek alphabet of Classical Antiquities, rather they appeared to be hieroglyphs and pictograms of Mycenaean Greek age. "The final resting of the Guardian, shall not be disturbed, lest the worthy of Zeus lay claim to his relics." She translated the writing noticing the odd cave entrance having a rather large amount of homes and windows carved into the mountain sides.

"They must have built the new homes after the tomb was done… what happened here?" Stuka mused curiously before activated his helmet's IR headlamp and take point for Girain while Shiryu and Chikiryu set up security around the island and patrol the sea around them. "Overlord, Athena here, we're going subterranean again, might lose contact so get the ground team to establish foothold ASAP."

"Acknowledge Athena, we're dispatching Task Force Zeus of MEDCOM to the island now. Hopefully Shiryu and Chiki can keep corridors safe." Said General Grady over the coms as the troops were being readied on board the LDP San Antonio and its sister ships, they were gearing up with various heavy weapons, entrenching tools, communication relays and radar systems, satellite radio and other equipment before being loaded up on AAVPs and MV-22 Valkyrie VTOLs.

Not far from the GDI's own fleet, Orion Sword flotilla of stealth ships had their own troops geared up for deployment on Grey's order with the troops using stealth VTOL models similar to the MV-22 but much more angular and sleeker, one of these were even armed gunship variants similar to the USAF's AC-130U Spooky Gunship.

The V-44X Kingfish VTOLs took off from the flight decks of Orion Sword stealth frigates and destroyers and carry their contingent of elite operatives towards the Island's northern side and began to disembark troops there while the GDI race to the southern side in a bid to secure the ruins.

"Oh well Rexy looks like there they go again, racing to control their own turfs, setting up a gang war or something. At least you have me to think about should you feel lonely." Chikiryu smirked under her helmet at Shiryu while he groaned and rolled his eyes to her sass. "Seriously I'm right next to you, let's just keep our eyes on the prize and-" He paused for a moment when they swam over a crevice of the Aegean Sea where he spotted what appeared to a massive shedded snake skin.

He dived down to pick up the skin and brought it up to the surface for GDI troops on the island to inspect, by laying it down on the sandy beach they began to notice something odd about it. A body that was long and serpentine roughly 60 meters long and 80 meters wide. Not only that but there seven heads, each with frills and Ghidorah like horns. "Uh… guys I don't think I've watched Hercules enough to remember how did he kill the Hydra." Chikiryu remarked stunted at the sight.

[hr]

While they were busy handling the measurements and DNA tests on the shedded skin, Stuka and Girain were busy moving deeper into the den finding even more ages of Greek history carved into the cavern, she was placing down some chemlights while Stuka looked up at the well carved walls and statues of Olympian deities on either sides. He noticed that each one had a plaque with their names carved on it.

"Command I've encountered an art gallery, these appear to date back to the 6th century B.C judging by their carbon dating." Stuka reported his finding while Mr. Grey and Joe monitored their progress from Orion Sword's central. "We see it, looks like these were built to Titan size. Judging by the carving it must have been carved into the wall instead of being imported elsewhere." Joe mused analytically as he measured the statue's size and composition being rather bare minimum compared to Greek style statues of the time. Most were to be painted like the golden statue of Athena in Athens, but these appeared to be rather simple with the white marble and limestone being carved directly into the wall. But the details were simply exquisite.

One of the statues however caught Girain's eyes as she came over to it, she noticed it was the statue of Athena but the Aegis shield present there appeared to oddly enough display an image of Girain herself. She took a step back seeing this odd imagery on the shield, she noticed that the shield itself was metal instead of limestone. Oddly enough, it didn't appear to be made from bronze and copper like most materials of the time.

Out of curiosity, she took the shield off of the left hand of the Athena statue and inspected it, her palms felt the metallic composition of the shield. It was light enough for her carry but rather dense and hard enough to withstand a direct hit from anything.

What was strange was the image of herself plastered on the shield's surface while at the same time, Girain acquired a sword and scabbard from the statue of Athena to tie around her waist. "Well what do you know, they prepared her props but forgot her her wardrobe." Grey mused at this while Stuka noticed that the sword had an owl figure on the hilt strangely enough, he then looked again at the door behind him, the stone door appeared to have carvings showing the images of Hephaestus, Atlas, Zeus, Damocles and Poseidon.

Each of the Olympians, sans Damocles and Atlas, were depicted with their iconic tool like Poseidon's trident, Zeus's lighting bolt, Hephaestus hammer. While then Atlas was seen holding up the globe like in mythological depictions and Damocles appeared with a sword hanging over his head apparently ready to fall down.

As Stuka inspected the lock on the door, he noticed the lock had an owl head symbol on it and looked back at Girain. He saw that the female MFS unit had an owl painted on her chest panel, could it be a coincidence? No it couldn't have been, it was all apparently well set up, like they were the long awaited guests. He noticed that on the hilt of Girain's sword there was an owl figure, it didn't take him long to connect the dots and gestured for Girain to come over.

"Unit Athena, I think your sword has a purpose here. Take a look." He pointed her to the owl carved on the stone door as she then drew her sword and pushed the blade into the locking, hearing the clicking sound inside of the door, she then twisted the blade around. This unlocked the door which slid open revealing a massive antechamber and two spiraling staircases for them to take. "Good find Stuka, looks like we're onto something here. You see that gate on the other side? It looks like the gate of Tartarus to me." Girain pointed Stuka towards the gate on the other end of the antechamber.

He noticed how the rustling metal gate appeared to have a bar like design akin to most villa gates with the skull motifs alongside the complement of vicious visages of fearsome Cerberus, gatekeeper of the Underworld. On the gate were a set of five locks that require 5 keys to open, and around them were the corridors leading to the 5 different rooms to find the keys. Seeing this Stuka went towards the corridor of Poseidon seeing that the floor right before the door was marked by a symbol of the rolling waves of the sea. He saw a lever next to the door, presumably to control the metal barriers and pulled it. Just as he thought, the barrier retracted revealing to him a corridor with the smell of salt water. "Smell of salt, there might be open water somewhere up ahead." Said Stuka as he traversed the corridor.

He noticed that his optics began to have steam and water droplets build up, obstructing his view causing him to wipe it periodically. Girain being close behind him had to do the same due to water droplets coming down from the ceiling. She glanced up and noticed that the ceiling was apparently leading them out to the sea, with cracks suggesting that water erosion had been chipping away at the structure very slowly. "Let's hope we're done in time, otherwise there might be more problems with getting out than getting the keys." Girain mused with a grimace.

Stuka nodded to her before he dived down to a water filled drainage pool followed by Girain as they began to swim along the the massive tunnel and drainage aqueduct. The two came out to what appeared to be a massive aquarium with a domed structure to keep it contained. The aquarium would no doubt be Poseidon's property with various underwater rocky coves, coral reefs and a multitude of marine wildlife populated the area and yet none of them stand and look at Girain and Stuka. They scurry away just as soon as the two swam over their heads.

But as they swam around exploring the aquarium, Girain noticed that there was a gaping hole on the stone structure of the aquarium's far side showing what appeared to be slithering tracks on the ground. "Hmmmm, we're not alone here Stuka, keep your eyes out." Said Girain in concern as she swam around the aquarium searching for a key with Stuka. "Affirmative Unit Athena, will keep my eyes out for trouble." Stuka replied calmly as he continued to search the sandy seabed for signs of a mystical key.

He soon noticed what appeared to be a valve like handler buried on the seabed and quickly dusted it off revealing some fragments of gold on the handle valve. "Unit Athena, I believe I've found something here, a valve of sorts I believe. It seems to be made of gold and covered by barnacles and corals." Stuka described it in detail while sending live camera feed footages of the valve to Girain so she could follow up on the findings.

She then discovered a second valve on the seabed with similar design and carvings. "Found another one here, I think we're supposed to turn these simultaneously." Girain exclaimed as he inspected the carvings on the handle to find any suggestions on what direction she was meant to turn. She noticed a pair of dolphins one was facing clockwise and the other counter-clockwise with the one facing clockwise having a silver finish while the counter-clockwise was bronze.

"Stuka, you see the dolphin ornates on the valves? I think we're supposed to turn them in the direction of the silver dolphins." hearing her observation, Stuka nodded to her and began to turn the valve in a clockwise direction followed by Girain, in the process they heard loud banging and creaking sound on the seabed as the massive stone hatch twisted around kicking up the sand and scared off the marine wildlife away. The process revealed to them both a massive stone gate with the silhouette of an octopus like Titan, in MONARCH's archive there exist Titanus Scylla but here, before their eyes, speculations of a possible MONARCH's Charybdis or Kraken were about to be confirmed.

"Hey uh Stuka, how well do you fare against giant octopus?" Girain grimaced as they stood back away from the slowly opening stone hatch. With bubbles suggesting air rising out from an abyss below, followed by a quartet of tentacles wriggling out feeling the ground around them and send feedback to the host body.

"I was trained to go for the head all the time." He replied dryly but to Girain it felt adequate enough. "Sounds good enough for me." she gulped thickly as the monster finally emerged, a gigantic cephalopod creature emerged having eight eyes around its round dome like head. The creature's mouth was a gigantic maw with teeth as sharp as buzzsaws, their placements weren't better one bit with the maw being circular the teeth become powerful cutting tools for anything. "I do not want to test their crushing power." Stuka remarked and slipped out his tonfa blades.

"Me neither, I supposed the dentist is calling sick today." She sarcastically remarked before the two swam around the massive cephalopod monster and engage its tentacles. Stuka used his superior speed and agility of a Rex Unit to weave through the water like a hot knife through butter with his tonfa blades. He slashed through the tentacles that were 5 times larger than his body, and did not slow down to avoid being caught. Despite the powerful blow, Charybdis tentacles weren't slashed into bits and pieces, instead they suffered only minor cuts and wounds.

Girain in turn fired off her oral AZC cannon freezing some of the tentacles that were collapsing on her before she was wrapped up in a sticky situation, then she followed up with her railguns shattering the frozen tentacles into bits, this made Charybdis angered at Girain and quickly used its spare tentacle to ensnare her and tied her up before trying to devour her. "Stuka! Help!" Girain cried out as she struggled to break free while her tail was wiggling and struggle to swat the tentacle away.

Stuka heard her cry for help and spotted the tentacle that was strangling her, he gasped out in panic and instinctual rage for once when his dorsal plates flashed up. They light up and pulsing with nuclear energy as his mouth plate opened up revealing his real mouth underneath as he breathed out the Godzillian signature atomic breath attack at the cephalopod's head. His breath attack pierced through its eyes and exited on the other side of the penetration clearly killed the monster since it let go of Girain with blood flowing out of its head and black ink before collapsing down on the pit.

"I noticed you did not utilize your sword and shield there. Was there a problem?" Stuka asked curiously looking at her hip where she had her sword mounted. "Oh well I thought that it wouldn't do well underwater as it would on land." Girain remarked with a sigh as she kept the sword tied to her hip and began to dive down the abyssal lair with Stuka, at the bottom of it they found what appeared to be a trident shaped key sitting on a pedestal. Girain reached down and picked up the key inspecting its ocean blue color and Trident appearance for a moment before returning to the ante chamber with Stuka.

There, they stick the key into its corresponding lock and heard the clanking sound of metal as one of the steel barricades keeping the gate lock retracted. Seeing this, the two knew that they just need to keep up the pace and soon the gates will open up revealing the path inside for them to take. Girain placed down a chemlight on the corridor that led them to the aquarium and turned towards the next corridor, Zeus.

With a lever pull, Stuka and Girain were funneled through a rather expansive corridor but one that Stuka noticed to have been made from metals like bronze, copper, gold and silver. These were worn decor on the walls and ceilings with statues of Zeus holding his thunderbolt. As they approached a challenge chamber, they found a marble statue of Zeus standing on the top of Olympus and under him was a Godzilla wearing a sort of Mycenaean style armor suit. The Godzilla was holding a short sword similar to the one Girain was carrying, the blade was imbued with Zeus's thunder and lighting, striking at what could be the Greek interpretation of Ghidorah as the Lernean Hydra.

"Guess all myths are true, from a certain point of view." Girain remarked and Stuka nodded in agreement to her as they proceeded towards what appeared to be a large open chamber. Oddly enough there were stairs leading down to the massive square grid room in the middle but the floor tiles look like they were platforms. "I have a bad feeling about this." Stuka muttered.

He stepped forward, accidentally hitting a secret button on the floor, one that had a thunderbolt symbol, he grimaced under his helmet knowing that he might have messed up again. Girain and Stuka were soon treated to the sight of a sphere being lowered from the ceiling as it began to zap the floor tiles. The tiles then revealed themselves to be platforms that either sink or rise, with the metal sphere on the ceiling shootout lighting bolts on the raised tiles but leave the lower ones untouched. Then the tiles change position on random making the approach to the otherside of the room much more treacherous.

Stuka and Girain both gulped thickly seeing the challenge presented to them being virtually impossible, they were both able to conduct electricity and one step on the wrong tile at the wrong time can prove fatal. "Tactical observation suggest that it's nearly impossible to break through." Said Stuka but Girain was only slightly fazed by the comment, "Nearly but totally." She emphasized. Then it dawned on her, the statue from before was a hint, a guidance for how to overcome the challenge in front of them.

"Wait I think I have an idea how to get through this now." Said Girain as she drew forth the sword and began to make her way across the room much to Stuka's apprehension, she held the sword high, willing to risk herself to find out the exact solution to the puzzle. Stuka gasped out in fear for the first time when he saw her taking the lead and felt compelled to follow to intervene if she were in danger. He saw that her tail was caught on heightened tile with the sphere shooting out lighting bolts once again. "Unit Athena, look out!" He cried out to her causing Girain to flinch in alarm but instead of actually being shocked by lighting, she saw that the sword was electrified and acting as an electrical conductor.

"Hey… it works after all, stay low and stay on the low tiles just to be safe." Girain gestured to Stuka who then nodded and followed her lead walking on the low tiles, changing his steps almost right away when the tile rise again. Eventually getting through relatively unscathed, now out of danger, they discovered a challenge chamber of sorts with a gold sphere frame on the back of Atlas idol made of gold. There were also various electro spheres to conduct electricity from a source nearby.

"Odd, the globe appears to be removable judging by the struts placement." Stuka mused and observed cautiously at the globe on Atlas's back. "I think we're meant to move it just where to exactly." Girain mused curiously as she approached the idol of Atlas and noticed that the base of the statue had a block that stuck out like a sore thumb.

On instinct she pushed it inward, causing the gold idol of Atlas to move the struts out letting the globe rolled over his back and head to the floor. "This is increasingly bizarre, structurally speaking, this place defies the law of spatial placement." Stuka commented seemingly stunted and awed before he began to push the globe around.

As he did so, he noticed that there was a circular placement in the center of the room for the globe and proceeded to roll it into place, this activated a pedestal that hoisted the globe upward in the middle of the room. But now something odd was bothering him, what does this do? "A globe made of gold, East and West are… wait a second… Stuka those are electrical conductors! The globe made of gold to conduct electricity from Zeus to those!" She pointed up to the top side of the room showing a pair of automaton like gold statues of Athena holding hand cranks ready to wheel up the gate and reveal the key.

"How do we conduct electricity from… Wait… Unit Athena, your sword was able to catch the electricity discharge." Stuka pointed to her sword and Girain nodded to him, drawing her blade and went out to the electro-sphere from earlier to catch its lighting. She held out her sword, standing back from the tiles and waited for the lighting, it struck home right on the blade itself but never went down to the hilt as she quickly directed the lighting bolt at the globe.

The electricity traveled around the equator running East and West before being beamed up towards the golden statues of Athena. The automatons then operated the crank to pull up the gates, giving Stuka the chance he needed to obtain the key of Zeus and got out. "Great job Stuka, looks like we might be able to get through this after all. I wonder if Shiryu and Chikiryu are having it easy up there." Girain sighed out looking up at the ceiling before returning to the ante chamber with Stuka.

But while they were busy solving the puzzles underground, Shiryu and Chikiryu were about to have surprised visitors dropping in as three unknown contacts spotted on the GDI's radar ship began to converge on the island. Traveling at high speed, they appeared to have come from the West and were beaming for the GDI and Orion fleets mooring off the coast. Their trip has just got a lot wilder than they would have liked.