10:17AM, May 18, 2014 – Pacific Ocean, USS Saratoga

What a night it'd been.

Breaking into the old Plant. Finding Doctor Serizawa and talking to him. Seeing that thing break out of a cocoon and EMP the shit out Janjira, not that there was much to EMP out there other than the Plant itself. And then being taken by helicopter to the USS Saratoga out in the Pacific off the coast of Japan to follow Joe after his emergency evacuation from the area.

Ford slumped back in his chair as he waited by a pair of double doors to his right.

To Ford, the minutes were passing like hours. Every tick of the nearby wall clock was like a nail in the back of his head.

I still can't believe all this, he thought. Dad was right. There was something in the Plant that caused the meltdown and killed mom. Nobody believed him. Even me. His own son.

Ford growled under his breath and leaned forward to put his forehead in his hands.

"I'm sorry, mom." He whispered.

The doors opened, and Ford shot to his feet as a doctor and a nurse both started.

"Whoa! Mister Brody. You scared me, there."

"How is he?" Ford demanded.

"He suffered a severe spinal injury which resulted in paralysis. He's never going to walk again."

"But he's going to live, right?"

"Yes, mister Brody. He'll live."

Ford sighed in relief.

"He's awake, if you'd like to go speak with him. Just please be mindful that he's on sedatives from surgery so he's going to be groggy."

"Thanks doc."

Ford walked into the room they'd wheeled him to after surgery and sat down by his bedside.

"Hey dad." He whispered.

Joe's eyes slowly slid open. And a faint smile graced the corners of his mouth beneath the oxygen mask.

"Hi son."

Ford reached out and placed his hand on Joe's, giving it a light squeeze.

"How're you feeling?"

Joe nodded subtly.

"Cool… Cool."

"Y-… You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine, dad. No injuries or anything."

"Good." Joe whispered before a minor coughing fit.

"You okay?!" Ford asked a bit louder.

"I'm fine. Just a… Throat tickle."

Ford nodded.

"Got it. Okay… Anyway, you should close your eyes and get some sleep dad. It's been a helluva day, huh?"

Joe's smile widened and he chuckled a bit with a nod.

"Thanks, son."

"I'll come back later okay? Rest up."

Ford patted Joe's shoulder gently and left the room and was greeted in the hall by Doctors Serizawa and Graham.

"How's your father doing?" Graham asked.

"He's paralyzed, but he'll be okay."

Serizawa let out a breath he'd been holding and nodded with a smile.

"Mister Brody. We apologize for how this may sound so soon after such a harrowing experience. But we need your help with something." She continued.

"What with?"

"With understanding what happened to the plant exactly. Did your father ever tell you the full story?"

"We would ask him. But we don't want to disturb his recovery." Serizawa added.

Ford nodded.

"Thanks for thinking of him… He's told me the story a thousand times. So I've got a pretty good idea of what happened."

"Please come with us, mister Brody." Graham asked.

Ford was ushered through the halls of the carrier to a meeting room with a projector in the middle of the table, and sat down at the end behind it.

"Please start from the beginning, mister Brody. And please leave out nothing." Graham requested as she sat down on the side with Serizawa sitting opposite her.

"Okay. Well, uh… He said it all started when he got readings of tremors with that frequency thing about a week before the Plant went down. They weren't very strong then. But he noticed they were consistent."

Serizawa nodded. "The creature was still in its infancy. So its ability to impact sensors was minimal unless it was very close." He said.

"Sounds about right. Anyway, dad said that the day the Plant went down he tried to convince his superiors to pay more attention to them. But they insisted it was sensory malfunction or equipment failure elsewhere in the Plant. So dad sent mom and a team down to check it out and they found that thing right before it trashed the Plant."

"It must've burrowed into the Plant from the base. Breaking into the tunnels beneath the core where it was warmest and the metals the most pliable." Doctor Graham surmised.

"Dad said that leading up to the incident it was basically the same thing as what just happened. The tremors and frequency responses were the same, but growing stronger and more frequent. And then when it finally made it to the Plant and trashed it, that's when everything was at its strongest."

Serizawa put his chin in his hand. "It makes sense. Even if it was newly hatched, its very nature seems to be centered around that EMP it employed."

"What nature?" Ford asked.

"Radiation." Doctor Graham replied.

"Why radiation?"

"The creature you saw is part of an ancient super species we call the Titans. They existed long ago. Many before the dinosaurs. And they dominated this world as Gods." Serizawa said.

"During the times these creatures lived, the Earth was more than ten times as radioactive as it is today. And these creatures all adapted to use that radiation as a food source. This creature, specifically, is a parasitic organism. And it-"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" Ford interjected. "My dad's going to wanna hear this. The whole reason we went to the Plant was to see if we could find that thing so he could understand what exactly took down the Plant, and what killed mom. So can we pick this up once he's awake?"

Serizawa nodded with a smile. "A wise decision. I also wish to speak to your father about other matters."

The meeting was adjourned, and picked up approximately eight hours later when Joe was awake and lucid. Back in the room, now seated beside his father in a new wheel chair, Ford kept a hand on Joe's shoulder as the latter paid close attention to the Doctors recalling the information they'd shared with Ford.

"So that's where we left off, mister Brody. Do you have any questions before we proceed?" Doctor Graham asked.

"Yeah. I do, actually. How did this thing create the EMP?" Joe asked.

"To explain that, we must explain further its origins." Serizawa said as he turned on the projector and shut the room's lights off.

"What you're both about to see is highly sensitive information. So please keep this to yourselves." Doctor Graham asked.

The image of a massive reptilian creature was shown on screen. Partially obscured by mounds of water shooting up around it as well as the shape of a giant flying insectoid in combat with it.

"This," Serizawa began as he shifted forward to an image which highlighted the reptilian. "… Is a genus of Titans called Tatanus Gojira. It was named after the legends surrounding it we found in regions like the Philippines and Japan."

"Our organization, MONARCH, has dubbed this creatures official name as Godzilla. And the creature battling it in this image was called Shinomura." Doctor Graham added.

"The two battled in 1954 on the morning of the Castle Bravo nuclear strike. Officially, it was a "test." But these two were the true targets. Godzilla managed to destroy Shinomura before the nuke was detonated, but was exhausted by his efforts and was caught in the blast."

"Whoa, whoa. Wait. So this thing's dead now, right?" Ford asked.

"No, mister Brody. Godzilla had vanished by the time the smoke cleared. And there were signs that he'd gotten up and walked back into the ocean." Serizawa said calmly.

"But how? How could anything survive 15 Megatons of nuclear power?" Ford asked.

"Two reasons. Physics, and his biology." Serizawa said flatly.

"Godzilla is approximately 108 meters in height, mister Brody. That's 355 feet, posture depending since he often walks with a bit of a hunch. But due to his sheer size the energy released from the explosion wasn't able to overcome his mass enough to cause lethal damages." Doctor Graham stated.

"Think of it like a wave of water against a sponge ball. The initial wave passed over the ball due to how fast it's moving. The water in the wave strikes the front side of the ball, and slowly saturates it due to its porous nature. But it does so relatively slowly. And some parts of the ball near the side opposite the wave remain dry." Serizawa continued.

"So he probably got hurt, but survived because the blast couldn't just vaporize him?" Ford asked.

"That is our belief, yes. But back to our second reason. His biology. We know from data collected by MONARCH prior to this detonation that Godzilla's hide is highly resistant to heat. So much so that he's able to generate this without suffering any negative effects." Serizawa said as he flipped to a new and somewhat hazy image showing a blue beam erupting from Godzilla's mouth.

"What the…" Joe gasped.

"This is a stream of concentrated radiation, gentlemen. It begins within Godzilla's body as a concentrated gaseous form, and as it's expelled through the throat it passes through a region where a bio-electric spark ignites it which results in the beam you see here. His throat and mouth help shape the beam. The wider he opens his mouth, the larger the beam becomes." Serizawa said.

"Incredible." Joe whispered.

"That's insane." Ford gawked.

"It gets worse, gentlemen." Serizawa stated rather grimly.

"The temperature of a nuclear warhead's explosion can reach temperatures rivaling the interior of the sun, which are approximately 100 million degrees Celsius. This temperature only remains for a fraction of a second. But these temperatures are largely why Nukes can literally vaporize anything within the blast's range so long as those temperatures remain." Doctor Graham said.

"The temperature of Godzilla's beam has been measured at 500,000 degrees Celsius. And while that's significantly lower than the nuke's temperatures at the moment of detonation, Godzilla has never been observed to be harmed or burned by the temperature of his breath." Serizawa continued.

"MONARCH discovered a skin sample after the detonation from the Atoll. And based on our analysis his hide is capable of resisting temperatures upwards of 10 million degrees Celsius. So due to the combination of his size and the heat resistant nature of his hide, it's theorized that the split-second temperatures of the nuke were not enough to cause significant injury. And to top it all off, the threat of the concussive energy released by the nuke was rendered minimal due to how dense Godzilla's hide is. The skin sample MONARCH obtained was exhaustively tested against various levels of heat exposure and explosions, including a 10 kiloton nuclear detonation in Nevada in the late 50's." Doctor Graham continued.

"The sample remained in tact following that detonation." Serizawa concluded.

"Holy shit." Ford whispered as he leaned back in his chair.

Meanwhile, Joe sat completely dumbfounded.

"So Godzilla feeds on radiation, and his body's able to process it, much like a nuclear reactor, and concentrate it into that beam. Correct?" Joe asked.

"Correct, mister Brody." Serizawa replied.

"Incredible. Just… Absolutely incredible. So what about the parasites?" Joe asked.

"Those parasites feed on other Titanus species like Godzilla. In fact it was within a Philippine mine where the skeleton of another of Godzilla's species was discovered with two spores inside." Serizawa continued.

The projector was advanced a few slides to show the spores.

"As you can see, this spore is in tact. But the other spore is broken open. And a tunnel to the outside was discovered not far away." Serizawa stated.

"So they killed a different Godzilla creature and then this one burrowed to the Plant in Janjira." Ford mused.

"Correct." Doctor Graham replied.

Joe took a deep breath.

"Then that explains the EMP." He muttered.

"How, dad?"

Joe turned his wheel chair towards Ford.

"Nuclear detonations generate a pulse of electromagnetic radiation the moment they're detonated. So if these creatures are feeding on radioactive creatures like Godzilla, then it makes sense that they're able to concentrate that radiation into an electromagnetic pulse in a similar fashion to how Godzilla's body generates the beam. From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes perfect sense. If Godzilla's beam uses a bio-electric trigger, then that EMP would be how they negate his primary weapon and make it easier to overpower him and lay their eggs inside his body."

"Fuck." Ford muttered.

"Perfectly summarized, mister Brody." Serizawa stated with a smile.

"Mister Brody. Do you have any further questions?" Doctor Graham asked.

"No. I think I'm good." Joe replied.

"So, dad…" Ford began while putting a hand on Joe's shoulder. "What now?"

"Now, I go back to San Francisco to see Elle and Sam." He smiled as he looked over at Ford. "Now that we know what happened, I can finally accept it and let your mother rest in peace."

Ford smiled and nodded, giving his dad's shoulder a light shake.

"Doctor Serizawa." Joe began as he looked to the doctor. "This Godzilla. You said you believe he's still alive, correct?"

"That is correct, mister Brody."

"Is he a threat to humanity as much as these parasite things are?"

Serizawa shook his head.

"Since MONARCH's first encounter with Godzilla, we have observed only passive behavior so long as other Titan species were not involved. When the Shinomura was discovered, Godzilla became aggressive towards it. But he ignored all military attempts to attack him while the two fought. And even after the nuke, Godzilla disappeared and hasn't been seen since." Serizawa said.

"So he's leaving us alone. Presumably this is true as long as we leave him alone, then. Would you agree?" Joe asked.

Serizawa gave a firm nod.

"Do you think the military can find and stop this parasite?"

"I do not know. But I believe there is a chance, at least."

"I see."

"Dad. What are you thinking?"

"I'm just hoping that this parasite can be dealt with before Godzilla shows up."

"You think he'll show?"

"I believe so, Ford. There are a lot of animals out there who can sense their rivals long before they see them. And if they know it's a threat to their territory or survival, they'll take preemptive measures to deal with them."

"So Godzilla might attack it soon?"

Joe nodded.

"Shit. Hey, do we know where it headed?"

"MONARCH lost track of the creature after it escaped Janjira. But the military has been tracking it via satellite imagery. We know it has remained in the Pacific region. Likely on an island somewhere to rest its wings and feed if it can find anything substantial."

"What could be substantial enough?" Ford asked.

"Unfortunately some countries, such as the US and Russia, have nuclear submarines deployed throughout the world. Those would more than suffice if it could find one close enough to Japan's waters." Doctor Graham replied.

"Shit." Ford mumbled.

"Doctors. Where is the other spore?" Joe asked.

"Nevada, where…" Serizawa's eyes opened wide. "… Where the US puts all its nuclear waste."

"But sensei, we vivisected it thoroughly and tested it for years. You confirmed it was dormant." Graham said nervously.

"It may not be anymore." Serizawa replied.

"What does that mean?" Ford asked.

"If this parasite we saw at the Plant knows another of its kind is awake and alive, it may try to either meet it or fight with it. And regardless, if he's still out there then guess who's going to chase after them?" Joe said.

"Oh fuck. Nevada will take it right through California."

Joe nodded.

"We gotta get Sam and Elle out of there."

"Agreed. We need to get back to San Francisco. Doctors. What's the quickest way back?" Joe asked.

"We can get you a helicopter ride to Oahu. It's the nearest island to our position right now as it is. You can get a plane to San Francisco from there." Serizawa replied.

"It'll have to do. Ford, can you gather all our stuff? I'll meet you on deck by the chopper."

"Sure thing."

Ford dashed away as Joe regarded Serizawa with a grim look.

"What are the odds the parasite has the same idea of landing on Oahu if it finds food?" He asked.

"Given its position relative to Janjira and the most likely locations for US and Russian nuclear submarines that we know are deployed… Relatively high, mister Brody. Exercise caution." Serizawa replied.

"Thanks."

"Take care, mister Brody." Serizawa said as he shook Joe's hand.

"Good luck." Graham added, also shaking his hand.

"Here's hoping Godzilla stays where he is for a while." Joe mumbled as he wheeled himself into the hallway.

"Sensei. Do we know where Godzilla might be?"

"We have a few suspicions, but they're all almost equal distance from Oahu."

"So it really doesn't matter which location he might be at. He'll reach Oahu at about the same time regardless?"

"Yes. If the creature is on the island, Godzilla will find it."

"God help us all."