King Kong - Titanic Gorilla King of the Skull Archipelago
Gigantic Unknown Terrestrial Organism (G.U.T.O.)
Species: Titanopithecus kong ("Titan Ape God")
Classification: Megaprimatini
Name: King Kong IV/Congar/"John Hercules" (christened by Prof. Hank Hercules)/Titanus Kong
Alias: Kong, Congar, John, Johnny Kong (nicknamed by Robert "Bobby" Bond), Son of Titus, Grandson of Mangani, Mighty John Young, The Strongest Kong of All, King Kong IV, The Eighth Wonder of the World, Guardian Gorilla God of the Skull Archipelago, Great Ape Monarch of the Skull, The Greatest King, Demon King of the Jungle, Giant Demon God, Demon of the South Seas, Ruler of the South Seas, The-Mountain-Who-Thunders-Death Guardian Deity
Mode of Locomotion: Mostly quadrupedal stance as knuckle-walking is his favorite and default way of getting around in many environments, more so with mountainous areas, like his non-kaiju gorilla relatives; can switch to a bipedal stance and walk and run on his hind legs for a considerable amount of time like a human when the situation requires it.
Height: [1st Titanopithecus Specimen (Kerchak the Savage or King Kong I) (1933)] 360 feet tall/112.8 meters; [2nd Titanopithecus Specimen (Mangani the Silverbeard or King Kong II) (1960)] 403 feet tall/122.8 meters; [3rd Titanopithecus Specimen (Titus the Headstrong or King Kong III) (1999)] 380 feet tall/115.8 meters; [4th and Current Titanopithecus Specimen (Congar the Goliath, "John Hercules", or King Kong IV) (2017)] 475 feet tall/144.8 meters; [Female Titanopithecus Specimen (Kiki, "Katie", or Queen Kong) (2018)] 310 feet tall/94.5 meters; [Infant Titanopithecus (Toa the Adventurous, Congar Jr., Little Kong)] 85 feet tall/25.9 meters
Weight: 103,000 metric tons
Allies: Kiki/Lady Kong, Toa/Little Kong, Mangani the Silverbeard, Kiko, Gobaku, Hugo, Sker Buffalo, Kingsaurus, Ogreceratops, Emperor Mammoths, Professor Carl Bond, Susan Bond, Robert "Bobby" Bond, Holly, Captain Wally Englehorn, Professor Henry Hercules, Megan Hercules, Jack Denham, Diane "Prescott" Denham, the Denham Twins: Jonah and Hannah, Jason Jenkins, Hank Marlow, James Conrad, Mason Weaver, Jia, Lua, Houston Brooks, Lin San, Aaron Brooks, Ilene Andrews, Nathan Lind, Tagakroatuiwi, Jagu-Makawa, and Mothra
Locality: Skull Archipelago; comprised of three islands in the middle of the South Pacific that together form a vaguely saurian head and jaws opened wide agape when seen from above in space. The main island forming the "upper jaw" and "cranium" of the eastern side of the Archipelago is none other than Skull Island, the largest of the three. The two other islands forming the western side of the Archipelago or the lower jaw are Pharo and Mondo Islands. Mondo Island is the second-largest island as it forms most of the lower jaw. Pharo Island is the smallest of the three and with it being the "mandible joint" and the "mouth corner" between Skull Island and Mondo Island. The islands are separated from each other by two bodies of water. The body of water separating Skull Island from Pharo Island is called the Charybdis Channel due to its largest aquatic resident being the infamous Titan/kaiju, Charybdis, after which the channel was named. The other body of water separating Pharo from Mondo, albeit slightly narrower but no less dangerous than its eastern counterpart, is named the Dragon Channel as it is reigned over by Reptilicus' more arboreal relative, Jabberwocky.
For King Kong IV or Congar, at first, it was Pharo Island. However, after the destructive War of the Skull Gods and a localized cataclysm that happened almost all at once on Pharo Island, Skull Mountain, which was nestled in the central-western mountain ranges of Skull Island, became his permanent home for him and other remnants of his species looking to escape from the increasing hostility of their enemies back on Mondo Island.
Description/Appearance:
This fourth generation of Titanopithecus kong, like others of his kind, likely descended from a prototypical ape that was closely related to prehistoric Late Miocene specimens of Lufengpithecus, which is hypothesized to share more evolutionary affinity with stem African hominoids. Therefore, Titanopithecus would have likely been more related to the later African hominids such as the gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans than they are to the orangutans. Other scientists classify Titanopithecus as an evolutionary offshoot of the Gorillini, and some of them even go further as to place the species as a stem gorilla, and thus, part of the Gorillini tribe, which makes them more closely related to Chororapithecus and modern gorillas. However, given the spotty records of fossilization of prehistoric extinct apes, it should be taken with a grain of salt as scientists are still debating the evolutionary placement of Lufengpithecus within the hominoid family tree to this very day as these proto-apes could be very well the ancestors of orangutans. Therefore, this places the Titanopithecus species within quite a complicated situation as to whether they're closer to the African hominid side or to the Pongo and their evolutionary allies, including Gigantopithecus, who is the ape species often hypothesized to be Kong's prehistoric ancestor, or closely related to one. What is even more uncertain is the place of Kong's species' ancestral origin prior to their arrival into the Hollow Earth and later, their exile onto the Skull Archipelago as it switches back and forth between Africa and Southeast Asia amidst debates within the anthropologist community.
However, what is certain is that on a group of large islands brimming with the most ferocious beasts on the planet, none strike greater awe and reverence than the dominant Titan of the Skull Archipelago: King Kong IV. The largest primate to walk the Earth and one of the largest terrestrial mammals known, Kong is among the most charismatic of the Titans, tied with the likes of Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra. Like them, he too is worshipped by the humans that occupy his territory, seen as a guardian monster that protects them from the likes of less benevolent entities and keeps the warring beasts of the Archipelago in check. Nesting atop Skull Mountain, he surveys his territory that is Skull Island, watching over all within his mighty kingdom and stifling any threats that could bring untold destruction upon the godforsaken Archipelago he calls home. Congar/King Kong IV, the young silverback leader of the Congar Tribe; his mate, Kiki/Lady Kong; their only son and heir, Toa/Little Kong; his albino uncle named Kiko; his cousin on his granduncle's bloodline, Gobaku who is a silverback leader of his own tribe; and former apex silverback of the Kong troop, Mangani the Silverbeard who is Titus and Kiko's father, Gobaku's granduncle, Congar's grandfather, and now Toa's great grandfather; are among the last remnants of the Great Ape Titans who once reigned over the Skull Archipelago.
Over time, their already small population declined into critically low numbers due to intense competition and predation from their vast rogues' gallery as follows:
The now functionally extinct Megalotyrannus, of which Godzilla Heisei is the genus' only surviving member; Gorosaurus dynastes, Titan descendants of Giganotosaurus; Vastatosaurus rex, giant armored descendants of Tyrannosaurus rex; Deathrunners, feathered Titan subspecies of Venatoraptors with their ancestry being that of Dakotaraptor; Foetodons, giant lizard-like relatives of the more titanic Godzillasaurus that have the ability to spit out fierce flames from their mouths; triphibian Titan descendants of Longisquama, Varanoaves baradagi, AKA Varan; the rauisuchian species of Entelosuchus; Devil Eagles, giant species of raptorial pterosaurs closely related to the larger pterosaur Titan species of Rodan that can spit out napalm-like fireballs from their mouths and are the surface world counterparts to the Hollow Earth's Hellhawks; Canopy Storks, the tree-mimicking descendants of Quetzalcoatlus; Terror Rocs, Skull Island's Phorusrhacids; Ookondoru, Argentavis-like descendants of sea-going condor-like teratorn birds; Porcupine Shrewsters; Skullcrawlers, the mysterious shadow-like Night Feeder; Cryptosaurus, highly derived descendants of plesiosaurs that convergently evolved a sauropod-like body plan with partially webbed, crocodile-like limbs for a semi-terrestrial lifestyle whilst retaining their ancestral carnivorous nature; Swamp-Wings, strange marsh-dwelling fliers and gigantic cousins of the Leafwings; Leviathan Crocodiles; Ebirah; Mire Squid; Dragon Cobras, the more terrestrial relatives of the Hollow Earth's Warbats; Behemoth Pythons; Malevolusaurus, hardened synapsid descendants of Dimetrodon that hunt in the barren upland regions; Juggernaut Scorpion, the semi-terrestrial sea scorpion giant; Vampire Wasps; Razor Wolves; Icarus Tigers; and Dire Cave Bears.
On Mondo Island, its own native megafaunal predators inflicting the most damage to the Mondo Kong populations are the Mondo Dragons AKA Meat Eaters, which are giant semi-bipedal, carnivorous monitor lizards closely related to Megalania; Roseaceratops pugnaxis AKA Baragon, a carnivorous or omnivorous descendant of the ceratopsian dinosaur species of Centrosaurus that is adapted to a fossorial existence, who is reported to have a beaked mouth armed with spike-like canine fangs and possessing a large frill that is split in two resembling bat ears; the species of chameleon-like abelisaur called Carnoflage; Red Kings, the carnivorous, brutish descendants of the Permian proto-mammals called caseasaurs; the spinosaurid Siren Jaw; Aborasaurus, the Lao-Shan Lung-like descendant of Ceratosaurus; Pterano Wyvernids; the Gimantids; Spiega; Pirahnadon; huge Aurognathus-like pterosaurian Pyschovultures; Ornithodracopteryx paradoxicus AKA Feathery Dragon, a titanic flying bird-like dinosaurian reptile that is a close relative of the way smaller Feather Devil; humanoid fish-like tetrapods called Ragon; Gesura, semi-terrestrial fish-like tetrapods resembling lizards; Kappa, carnivorous anurans with hardened scaly skin, dorsal turtle-like carapaces, and sporting lizard-like tails; Vodyanoy, a solitary, yet deadly semi-aquatic stem cetacean related to Ambulocetus; Obituarisaurus corpus AKA Death Jackals, quadrupedal theropod dinosaurs with Herrerasaurus-like head and jaws, and swift greyhound-like bodies; Cornugnathus matthewesii, which is a tall, gracile-bodied, heron-like compsognathid dinosaur that is a generalized fish hunter but also an opportunist willing to prey on other animals such as medium-sized herbivores, juveniles, and young, inexperienced Kongs due to the strong striking force of its beaked jaws; Tyrant Salamanders, smaller yet more aggressive relatives of the Mondo Dragons that have been known to spit out highly corrosive liquids form their gullets whenever they're threatened or about to land a killing blow on their prey; Silicotheres, highly derived, bio-volcanic descendants of Uintatherium that are very ill-tempered and extremely violent omnivores; and Smilosuchus insularis, a relict population of the phytosaur lineage that has grown to even more gigantic sizes than its predecessor.
Other causes include sickness and injury each taking a toll on the dwindling Titanopithecus population.
In terms of appearance, Kong strongly resembles an adult silverback western lowland gorilla, albeit with a more humanoid, very muscular bodybuilder-like built to him. Kong's arms are proportionally longer than his legs. They and his body sport several scars. His fur is a dark brown color and covers the majority of his body, except his face, chest, hands, and feet. Quill-like structures grow across his body with most of them being hidden beneath his fur by a few growing quite long around the shoulder region. Only his chest and hands have any form of protection with hardened skin. Being several meters thick on average, alone it can withstand a good deal of punishment. Just beneath its surface, it is further strengthened by sub-dermal osteoderms. This chainmail-like structure provides valuable protection without diminishing flexibility, something crucial when fighting in close quarters. Finally, Kong's defenses are topped off with a type of highly derived osteoderms that have evolved into visible armor plating that covers the chest, shoulders, and underarms of Kong. The skin on his knuckles has become calloused and even ossified into rudimentary osteoderms, giving them a spiked-knuckle appearance both for added protection when walking (when on all fours he walks on his knuckles as gorillas do), and also as built-in knuckle studs to give him extra force when striking. Due to his status as a silverback, the hairs across his neck, back, and shoulders turn into streaks of silvery gray, forming the unique shape of an upper skull. Like gorillas, he has a very pronounced, massive sagittal crest on top of his head and is covered in reddish-orangish-brownish fur, which is supported by a short, yet stocky neck that houses large muscles, giving it a domed appearance. He has grown beard-like facial hair that is dark orange in color. Kong's skin is dark grey in color and has large scars across his chest. He has a crescent-shaped scar running over his left eye. Most of the time, he's knuckle-walking or running on all fours like a chimpanzee or a gorilla. When he does the transition to a bipedal stance, he not only stands but also walks upright almost like a human with his incredibly long arms held at the sides.
Ecology:
Growing to the height average ranging from 285 feet to 410 feet tall with the recorded max height of 420 feet tall, Titanopithecus kong descended from stem apes that probably first appeared ten million years ago in the tropical southern lands of mainland Asia. Shortly after these stem apes arrived into the Hollow Earth, the mysterious realm's radioactive energies accelerated their transformation into the gigantic gorilla-like apes we know as of today. They were not native to the islands, although they had arrived on Skull Island around three million years ago, and were suspected to have been brought alongside the Hollow Earth tribes, which their descendants would eventually divide into the three tribes of the Tagu, Atu, and Krow, were also exiled away from their original homeland by Godzilla's ancestors. The Ape-shaped monoliths within the ruins of the united Hollow Earth descendants' empire suggested that the Titanopithecus may have been revered or worshiped by the Hollow Earth descendants before their eventual split into the two, then, later on, three tribes and disintegrating collapse of their once-powerful civilization.
Kerchak the Savage himself, as a result of being alone after his tribe was wiped out on Skull Island, was forced to take up some behaviors that are atypical of his species. Titanopithecus kong lived in small tribal family units in the lowland jungles where their numbers could provide some measure of protection. Kerchak, on the other hand, lived up high in the tallest mountain hollow that is Skull Mountain and had to make carefully planned trips into the deep jungle to search for food. After the War of the Skull Gods, his brother, Mangani the Silverbeard, and other surviving Kongs would live in the highland cloud forests at the base of the mountains and closer to Skull Mountain, retreating up to it and other nearby mountainous hollows clear of predators during sunset to make nests as to rest for the night. Titanopithecus are a very social species, emphasized by a mastery of body language and vocalizations, ranging from grunts and glances to roars and chest-pounding. It is observed that parent Titanopithecus kept their vulnerable young close while teaching them to find food. Adults like Congar were crafty fighters capable of using their dexterous grasping hands and superior brainpower to out-think and defeat opponents. Scarring found on King Kong IV and on the bones of his forebears reveal consistent clashes with the extinct Skull Island Megalotyrannus population, Gorosaurus dynastes, Vastatosaurus rex, Venatoraptor terroris, and Craniusaurus golgothus AKA Skullcrawlers.
All of these hyper carnivorous predators viewed young Titanopithecus as a food source and would attempt to steal them, leading to horrific battles with the adults. Younger Gorosaurus and Vastatosaurus are the most recurring instigators of these clashes with these giant apes, though gangs of Deathrunners and Skullcrawlers are not far behind them in how often they harassed and hunted them. Juvenile Skullcrawlers are extremely dangerous in that they are driven into reckless disregard of their own wellbeing by constant extreme bouts of hunger to the point of suicidal obsession to consume their intended target of a terrified young ape regardless of the angry adult Titanopithecus beating them into bloody pulps. Adolescent and sub-adult V. rexes would also brashly open hostile confrontations with their simian rivals, fighting them to the death to eliminate one of their biggest roadblocks in becoming the Archipelago's undisputed dominant predators. These giant armored descendants of the mighty Tyrannosaurus are extremely aggressive, very powerful, and one of the more physically brutish monsters of the kaiju world, but unlike the reckless Skullcrawlers, they have at least some sense of self-preservation to back off from a fight, albeit reluctantly, when the odds are no longer in their favor. Titanopithecus could use whatever lay at hand as a weapon, but most battles end with one party backing off when the odds have turned against them. However, if the stakes are high enough, they could readily become fights to the death. With Skullcrawlers, though, the Kongs would do their hardest to ensure absolute destruction of these skull-faced subterranean monsters, which means for certain that these two opposing species will always fight till either one of them or both of them are dead.
The Kong species, like their non-Titan great ape relatives, were never numerous by the time they were exiled to the Skull Archipelago. However, but over thousands of years, intense predation from their reptilian enemies, illnesses, injuries, and intraspecies fighting amongst rival Titanopitchecus silverback males contributed to the shrinking of their already fragmented populations. These risks, compounded with the primate habit of seldom breeding and taking years to reach self-sufficiency kept them from fully repopulating, leading to their eventual decline. It is theorized that the Kongs' odd relationship with the Archipelago's human population, which now includes the Jagu-Makawa, or Skull Dwarfs, the indigenous species of arboreal humans that are highly derived descendants of the archaic human species, Homo floresiensis and the more recent Southeast Asian human tribe of the Iwi, is a remnant of eons past when these god-like, prehistoric cousins of gorillas had a deeper connection with their Hollow Earth human followers.
History:
It all started in the winter of 1933. A strange savage land of monsters shrouded in storms and ruled by a primal creature that was neither beast nor man. For centuries, sailors spoke of the so-called Lost Continent containing all manner of secrets, from the vanished civilizations of Mu or Lemuria to creatures from the era of the gods. This Lost Continent would be the destination of the Venture, its crew consisting of Captain Englehorn, filmmaker Carl Denham, first mate Benjamin Hayes, playwright Jack Driscoll, and lead actress Ann Darrow, among others. It would be this expedition that would make history, proving once and for all that the titans that had been once restricted to folklore and legend were, in fact, as real as the animals that roamed the backyards and parks of the civilized world. And one such titan was the one the native Tagakroatuiwi, which are a unified people of Tagu, Atu, Krow, and Iwi tribes, and the Jagu-Makawa had referred to simply as "Kong", the word in their language means "god"... the alpha kaiju of the land that would be later known to the outside world as Skull Island.
Unable to understand the strangers from beyond the storm, the Tagakroatuiwi and the Jagu-Makawa had regarded them as a terrible omen, not unlike similar pale-skinned strangers who had wiped out the people on the mainland that they had once been a part of. They had deemed the "golden woman" a herald of misfortune and death - claims which Denham had callously dismissed. What was wrong with her? She was a starlet of the highest caliber! But the natives didn't care about Hollywood or the promise of fame, they simply wanted these strange, unwelcome people off the island before their god grew outraged by their tainted presence. Perhaps destroying the "golden woman" would assuage the god's wrath, or perhaps it would incite him to wipe out the foreigners. But no matter. She would be the next to be sacrificed, and so she was taken without delay, the beast god would claim her as he had many others before.
Many, many people would lose their lives that week. The outsiders wanted their golden woman back, and so they took some of the natives and forced them to guide them through the jungle in search of her. But of the seventy men that had set off from New York Harbor, only twenty would return, and not all of them unharmed. But supposedly, their efforts were not fruitless, for they had bought Kong with them. It was planned for Kong to be presented to the public as a spectacle, the Eighth Wonder of the World - but that was not to be. Disoriented and furious, he escaped, running wild in the streets of Manhattan, before scaling the Empire State Building with Ann Darrow clutched in his hand - the woman he had bonded with as a close friend/sisterly figure of sorts, all because she was almost everything that he had lost after his own family was destroyed. For all of his amoral savagery that was birthed out from his constant battle for survival, he perished knowing that there was beauty and compassion in the world. A beauty that had, ultimately, killed the beast.
Or so we thought.
It had been theorized previously that Kong I, or Kerchak, had been the only one of his kind left, but more expeditions would prove this wrong. Just nine months after Kong's death, another expedition to Skull Island was made, in the hopes of establishing better relations with the Tagakroatuiwi and the Jagu-Makawa, and assuaging their fears that the pale men would not destroy them as they had their ancestors ages before. Their success in this prospect was debatable, but the other discovery the crew made on the island was more surprising still - an albino juvenile "Kong" who would come to be named Kiko, who would go on to save the expedition from certain death. But just before they left the island, the crew would swear they saw a glimpse of another, even larger member of Kong's kind, one who would have a far greater impact some twenty-nine years later...
Pharo Island, 1960. Two expeditions, this time, were a competitive race between two rivaling American oil companies; one expedition sponsored by Pacific Petroleum, and another expedition sponsored by Petrox Oil Company. Each one made landfall in the hopes of discovering new deposits of oil first before the other could without any regard for the indigenous tribe of Kotonga, who are descendants of Tagatu and Iwi, including others whose ancestors were the ancient Polynesian and Micronesian travelers accidentally trapped by the Skull Archipelago's storm system, or reverence for Pharo Island's prehistoric inhabitants. Again, many of their people had lost their lives to the treacherous, rocky terrain of the mountainous jungles and the ancient monsters that made short work of them by tearing them apart with their teeth and claws, or by simply crushing them underfoot. Even Oscar "Yoshio" Tako, the Japanese American executive of Pacific Petroleum, nearly lost his life to a smaller, yet deadlier and more poisonous viperine-like relative of Varan when he discovered the creature guarding several patches of trees bearing the Farolactan Berry, or the soma berry deep within the mountains. While Petrox's executive, Fred Wilson, dismissed the berries as nothing little more than sweet tropical raspberry juice, Tako, on the other hand, found great medicinal value in these berries in potentially expanding the company into the pharmaceutical industry, but his people would need to procure specimens of these berries for in-depth scientific study. Things grew more complicated when a mysterious creature - the same giant ape that had been sighted at the end of the second 1933 expedition - was also found to be dwelling there, one which the Kotonga connected in their mythology to the perpetual storm surrounding the island. In their words, "Kong" was the embodiment of the storm itself, a calamity made flesh, but one they had tempered with the soma berries and given the space to exist peacefully. With this in mind and on top of that the unfortunate fact that none of the oil deposits are usable until a thousand years later, Fred Wilson concocted a secret scheme to capture Kong II, or Mangani the Silverbeard and bring him back to the United States as a marketing gimmick for Petrox.
Primate paleontologist James Prescott, and two of Pacific Petroleum television employees, Terry "Osamu" Sakurai, and Joe "Kinsaburo" Furue, rescued Jane "Dwan" Hatheway, daughter of a famous songwriter, Paul Hatheway, and Elizabeth Darrow-Hatheway, and also the granddaughter of Jack Driscoll and Ann Darrow, and together, they escaped from Mangani's mountainous cave lair after he was distracted fighting off an exceptionally titanic Behemoth Python that tried to ambush a juvenile Titanopithecus, who was Mangani's younger son, Titus, that strayed too far from the group. The fighting and the panicked screams of the Kong troop also spooked the cave system's residential flock of bat-winged, Troodon-like descendants of the Late Jurassic winged dinosaur, Yi Qi, called Snakebirds, provoking them to swarm and harass everyone in the cave, just like how Kerchak Kong angered the larger Devil Eagles, provoking them to attack him in kind in Skull Mountain via his aggressive commotion towards Jack Driscoll as a perceived threat towards Ann Darrow many years ago. By the time Jim, Terry, Joe, and Dwan escaped by swimming back to the Kotonga village, they found it falling into chaos as fighting occurred between the Petrox and Pacific teams. The latter sabotaged the former's trap to capture Kong with the aid of the Kotonga and four of Petrox team members-turned-traitors when these disgruntled employees informed Mr. Tako, his men, and several of the Kotanga tribesmen, including the tribal chieftain, earlier in the afternoon about Wilson's ambitious plan out of spite for their boss' darker monomania towards Kong and his increasingly callous, abrasive behavior towards their fellow coworkers, Captain Ross, and even his own right-hand man, Roy Bagley. Unfortunately, the gunfight distracted everyone from the real threat that just breached itself onto the shore not too far from the southwestern edge of the village where giant jugs of soma juice were stored. A Kotonga boy and girl were hiding with their mother in a hut away from the carnage going on in the main plaza of the village when the giant creature clambered its armored body halfway up the gated walls as gravity allowed its entire massive weight to push down on the walls and crush them. It went after the soma juice stored in the jugs, not caring about the mother and her children that were now trapped in the hut. All of them screamed in frightful terror as one of the creature's many segmented legs brushed up against the hut. The creature let out a curious chirping warble as it heard the screams. It was about to check out the hut underneath it when the mother, in desperation, grabbed her tribal knife and plunged the blade into the softer flesh joint between the plating of its two pedipalps. Although not wounded, but the blade was sharp enough to give it a nasty sting of pain running up its leg with the monster letting out a louder screech of surprise that sounded off from its mouthparts. It was that caused the all-out war between Petrox and Pacific to come to a literal screeching halt. The Kotonga tribal warriors wasted no time rushing towards the southwestern edge of the village whilst Wilson and Tako temporarily set aside their animosity as they and everyone else followed the natives. The titanic crimson crustacean, far bigger and more massive than any crustacean known yet at the time, was breaking every jar and tearing the hut apart with its huge pincer claws, terrifying the scared mother and her crying children. Covered in stony armor and dragging behind it a segmented tail lined in fluke-like projections, it raised its claws into the air like two gnashing heads ready to rip and crunch through whatever stood in its way. This was, Ebirah, the so-called deep-sea Horror of Lechen Bay.
The Kotonga warriors hurled a hail of 30 spears at the giant lobster. All of them bounced off the armored juggernaut of an arthropod, but the gunfire did grab its attention after the outsiders fired their guns onto it. Ebirah retaliated by snapping its pincer claws at the throng of humans that were trying to wound it or drive it out of their village, not too pleased in having its short break from hunting interrupted by a puny species of mammals. The giant lobster Titan neither budged nor flinched from the volley of spears thrown at it and even the gunfire no longer startled it as the mammoth crustacean casually slammed its massively-sized left claw, which was built like a mix of a real lobster pincer and a pistol shrimp claw, onto the few Kotonga warriors and several of Wilson and Tako's henchmen unfortunate enough to be in its path of impact, flattening them into a bloody paste instantly. The defense line quickly fell apart as the Horror of Lechen Bay swept up a large wave of sand and debris with its giant left claw, while also knocking away many of the islanders and Wilson away in the process. Ebirah was about to impale the Petrox executive with its smaller, rapier-like claw when Roy Bagley shoved him out of harm's way at the last minute and sacrificed himself to be on the receiving end of the lobster's piercing claw. It was a losing battle for the humans as Ebirah had the defenders scattered and running for their very lives with the mammoth lobster rampaging amok, but it enabled Jim Prescott and Osamu to rescue the mother and her two children trapped in the hut before it was crushed underneath the lobster Titan's tail. A tired but angry Mangani finally caught up to the group that "kidnapped" Dwan when he saw what was happening to the Kotonga village now under attack by Ebirah. The sight of Dwan about to lose her life to Ebirah's rampage whilst protecting a tribeswoman's daughter amidst the chaos was enough to send the silver-gray bearded Kong into a blind fury with the powerful surge of adrenaline overcoming his earlier exhaustion. He threw the humongous wooden and bamboo gates at the monstrous lobster to block Ebirah from terrorizing the village any further, saving Dwan in the process. Ebirah screeched angrily as it picked up the remains of the hut it had flattened earlier with its smaller right claw and threw it right at Kong. Unfazed by the debris thrown at him, Kong pounded his chest, quickly closed the distance between him and Ebirah, and directly confronted the Horror of Lechen Bay up to its face. Mangani Kong and Ebirah came to blows with the former landing bone-shattering, spiked punches onto the latter's carapace, and while the latter clubbing the former with its oversized left claw. With Herculean strength, Kong lifted it high up into the air and then flipped the mammoth crustacean, smashing Ebirah backside. In furious desperation, Ebirah tried to use its left claw to produce a Shockwave Snap, but Kong stunned it from doing so by literally electrifying his fists into literal shock gauntlets with his Mana as he punched hard right into its face that caused an electrical discharge of 90,000 volts to electrocute its nervous system. Kong twisted and pulled on the left limb until he eventually ripped off the entire limb and claw right from Ebirah's left arm socket. As Ebirah reeled in agony, Kong tore off the other claw to further maim and humiliate the arthropod. Bruised and incapacitated with its claws lost and its armor dented and warped via sheer brute force, Ebirah limped off to the shore in defeat with Mangani Kong taunting it by mockingly clapping the left claw repeatedly. As soon as Ebirah disappeared into the sea, Kong discarded the pincer claw and let out a victorious, thunderous roar, pounding his chest in the throes of victory. As the adrenaline wore off, the exhausted Mangani drank from huge jars of Farolactan juice manufactured by the Kotonga people, which accompanied by their rhythmic rituals, caused him to fall asleep.
In the end, it was an unfortunate coin flip initiated by Oscar Tako after further negotiations failed to cool down the tension that still existed between him and Fred Wilson that decided the latter, therefore, Petrox as the winner to transport Kong to America. A move that later would result in many people of San Francisco losing their lives after Mangani Kong bust down the steel bars of his cage and tore the grand exposition apart. Fred Wilson was crushed underfoot by the enraged silverback Titanopithecus. The ape Titan tore down half of the stadium with his own bare hands before he realized the stadium was surrounded by a perimeter of electric towers. He easily passed through the barrier, actually drawing strength from the electrical currents and storing them like a battery. Kong smashed several buildings in the city, destroyed cars and a couple of trollies, stomped on fleeing citizens, and electrocuted everything around him within a four-mile radius with a massive electric shockwave when he slammed his fists into the streets, which also caused a massive blackout. James, Terry, Joe, Keaton "Kaito" Fujita, Dwan, and Terry Sakurai's sister, Faye "Fumiko" Sakurai, escaped to a streetcar station where everyone else was trying to cram onboard the streetcar. Unfortunately, due to how crowded the station was and with the people around them scared of Kong's rampage, Dwan and Faye were shoved into the streetcar when its doors closed, which left the men to bang helplessly on the doors as the streetcar departed. Mangani Kong was roaming through the streets of San Francisco when saw that very same streetcar got its front driver end crushed by a falling lamppost due to a careless driving accident amidst the chaos. The sparks from the broken lamp lit up the leaked gasoline trail of the streetcar as it went dangerously to a nearby gas station, which then caused a massive explosion that engulfed the city block, including the trapped streetcar. Startled and fearful when he saw Dwan and Faye unconscious within the burning wreckage, he ran towards them, and desperately plucked off the fiery remains from their unconscious bodies. He examined them and fortunately, they were miraculously untouched by the flames that consumed all the other dead citizens. He gently blew air onto them to see if they were alive and, much to his relief, at least, Dwan was the first to wake up and recognize him amicably without fear. Dwan and Kong embraced each other in their reunion, but it was short-lived as they could hear the police sirens becoming closer and louder. Kong wasn't safe here, and neither was Dwan nor the unconscious Faye should he decide to stand his ground here. He carried them both off singlehandedly in his palm. He noticed San Francisco's tallest building at the time, the 1,176-feet tall, 99-story Metropolitan Pyramid, which was constructed in 1955, in the distance as it reminded him of his lair back on Pharo Island. Kong climbed the pyramid-like skyscraper with Dwan and Faye, while the US Army pursued him. When Kong reached the top of the skyscraper, he sat at the base of the mooring mast and held Dwan and Faye in one hand as they looked at the clear full moon. To signify that he found it beautiful, Mangani tapped his hand on his heart repeatedly, mimicking Dwan's movement, which was the same movement taught to her by Dwan's grandmother who back then taught his older brother, Kerchak, in 1933, from his lair. After waking up from her coma, Faye was rightfully terrified of Kong and angry at him due to what her brother told her about the many times Kong tried to kill him. She calmed down after Dwan told her the truth of what truly happened on Pharo Island and seeing that Mangani had no intention to harm her, but was acting surprisingly...gentle and caring towards both of them, which contradicted the media's negative depiction of Kong as a sex-crazed, violent brute of a beast. Mangani reminded her more of Terry and their late father, who later died of his battle injuries when they were forced to face unbelievable hardships in a devastated Tokyo during the late '40s after the end of World War II before moving to America for a fresh start.
Their peace was interrupted by the sounds of an approaching squad of F-100 Super Sabres fighter jets. Mangani Kong quickly, yet carefully placed Dwan and Faye into the hallway of the 91st floor, and snarled at the jets before climbing to the top of the tower. Once he's at the apex point of the skyscraper, he beat his chest and roared at the planes before they made another pass. Bullets tore more of his flesh every time Kong managed to swipe down one of the passing jets. A couple of missiles were launched; one hitting Kong in the back and the other accidentally striking part of the building. Eventually, Dwan's screaming and Faye's desperate cries showed Kong that the latter was trying to prevent the former from falling to her doom after the hallway of the 95th floor was blown apart by the stray missile. Kong tried to reach for the women before both of them fell when Faye became so exhausted and Kong had to let go of his handhold to catch them. He climbed back up and placed the two onto the 98th floor, and gave both Dwan and Faye a relieved smile when he saw that they were safe, despite them having some minor cuts, dust, and ashes covering them. An F-100 fighter jet attacked Kong again by firing its guns and he tried to lure the jet away before it passed him. He grabbed another F-100 jet that was cockily getting too close to him and threw the offending aircraft into the same one that fired upon him as both of the jets exploded upon collision in mid-air. He then ripped off the apex tip of the skyscraper in spite of the retaliating gunfire and missiles that were thrown at him and he chucked it far, hitting more of the fighter jets. Dwan and eventually, Faye, climbed up after him and stood in front of him, trying to ward off the fighter jets, just like Ann Darrow did for Kerchak towards the fleet of biplanes twenty-seven years earlier on the Empire State Building. Such a brave act momentarily caused the pilots to call off the attack after noticing the two women. With the threat temporarily retreating, a wounded and tired Mangani, having had his incredible endurance weakened over time by the intense heat of missiles bombarding him, which was visibly evident by the patches of fur burnt off on areas of his back where the missiles had struck him, hunched over onto his knees as he coughed out blood due to his stomach being shot to hell much to both Dwan and Faye's great distress. Kong and Dwan had a tender, somber moment with Dwan lovingly placing her hand onto Kong's blood-caked face while Faye could only watch with mournful silence and loss of her innocence. Dwan was so emotionally overcome with grief to the point it was hurting her heart and lungs to even cry until she could only respond with a weak, lamenting voice that was choked in tears,
"Kong...K-...Kong...I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that I couldn't protect you...as you have protected me...saved me. Thank you...Kong...I...I...I love you...*whimper*"
Those were the last words Mangani would ever hear from her, but her newfound compassion and love for him shone a comforting light into his otherwise dark life of tragedy and deep regret as he would leave this world with his family and the Kotonga tribe's fates uncertain. The moment was then shattered by the sounds of gunfire as bullets tore through his back, causing Kong to cry out in agony before slumping against the building. Rasping out his dying breaths, Kong's final moment would be shared over the grieving women as he used the last of his strength to touch their tear-soaked faces gingerly with his finger. With that last stroke, he finally succumbed to his injuries and fell from the Metropolitan Pyramid, plummeting onto the plaza below. As crowds of reporters and spectators gathered around the fallen Titan, James Prescott, Dwan Hatheway, Terry Sakurai, Joe Furue, Faye Sakurai, Keaton Fujita, Oscar Tako, and even Captain Ross approached him and looked at him somberly just as his heart stopped beating.
After being shot off of the Metropolitan Pyramid in 1960, it turned out that Mangani Kong was not killed, but actually placed into a coma for two years afterward. Kong was taken to a secret underground facility somewhere close to the Vallecitos Boiling Water Reactor, but far enough that potential irradiation in the case of a nuclear accident would be minimal at best. That was where he was kept alive, but in a comatose state for a couple of years. Dr. Amy Franklin, the surgeon in charge of Mangani Kong, found a way to fully revive Kong by creating an experimental concoction to drastically enhance his superpowered immune system to speed up the healing process, which is comparably slower to Godzilla's atomic-powered regeneration ability. The concoction was a medicinal mixture of the Farolactan and pomegranate juices, the nectar of certain exotic flowers, potent herbs, and the most controversial derivative recipe being the derived and purified extract of the Rhedosaurus' irradiated blood free of the lethally dangerous pathogens that killed many of the US Army personnel in New York in 1953, which has potent regenerative properties and it would be considered similar to anti-venom medicine derived from rattlesnake venom to varying degrees. However, the amount of the concoction needed to be injected into his body to strengthen his nearly inert immune system would have to be astronomical. And that's not counting the sheer amount of electric current and levels of radioactivity needed to make sure that Kong was not only back to health, but also to jumpstart his heart once it would be fully healed. However, time was no longer on her's side to further make adjustments to her new medicinal procedure because, at the same time, a hibernating Godzilla, resting in the glacier within the Bering Sea for years before, had been awoken by the volcanic eruption. He made landfall in Alaska where he fought Anguirus for the first time before he descended upon San Francisco, California. When Godzilla and Anguirus fought for the second time, the collision course between the former's Atomic Heat Ray and the latter's Oscillatory Sonic Roar caused shockwaves and high levels of nuclear radiation that disrupted the entire Vallecitos Boiling Water Reactor into a disruptive meltdown and caused a detrimental domino effect that reached the secret underground facility. The advanced state-of-the-art technology reviving a now-drowsy, semi-conscious Kong went haywire along with the facility's nuclear power reactor being rendered out of control by the resulting tremors. Since the subterranean facility is dependent upon the hidden channels of water that connected from Vallecitos Boiling Water Reactor to its own nuclear reactor, when the larger water reactor was shut down, it also shut off the necessary water supply needed to stabilize the facility's nuclear reactor. As a result, the tubes connecting from the medicine refineries to Kong were pumping the concoction into his body at twice the recommended dosage parameter set by Dr. Amy Franklin. The doctor herself and her staff were trying to put a stop to the entire procedure, but electric bolts were surging wildly and sparking all over the place, destroying the laboratory. Kong's body, however, was drawing in the chaotic electricity into itself despite him not fully regaining his senses yet. However, the same couldn't be said for the doctor as she allowed herself to be struck by one as she lost her senses and her body convulsed on the floor in front of her horrified co-workers and including, her teenage daughter, Mary Franklin, who was an intern working as an entry-level lab technician. Kong's eyes opened wide, glowing blue before everything turned blindingly white.
By the time the Vallecitos Boiling Water Reactor imploded on itself from the meltdown, the secret underground facility tied to it also collapsed onto itself within an implosion. The ground and the observatory dome used to conceal the true nature of the subterranean facility sank as their infrastructure disintegrated within a gigantic explosion that caused a seismic fissure to form along the small valley it was nestled in. No one survived the calamitous destruction of the facility and the ensuing desolation of the once lush Californian valley of hills.
No one, except him...Mangani, or King Kong II; as his now larger and muscularly beefier physique burst through the rubble that was once the laboratory that had done its part in not only reviving the silver bearded ape but unintentionally mutating him as he punched his way out of the rubble. He was no longer the same Kong that was brought to San Francisco against his will two years ago. He now sported tall spines protruding through the back between his shoulder blades. Curved spikes popping out from his shoulders, armored bony plates now covering his chest, ribs, and abdomen, spiked plates adorning his forearms like a pair of serrated arm gauntlets, and claws replacing the nails of his hands whilst his feet remain normal. The most startling change was his upper face. Whereas it used to be filled with life, instead, now, his face was terribly gaunt as it was now merely skin and bone with his eyebrow ridges and his upper jaw protruding out the most. So gaunt, in fact, that his eyes looked sunken deeply into their sockets. His cheeks were in miserable shape with some of the jaw muscles and his long canine teeth exposed, making his profile nearly unrecognizable except for his eyes and his distinctive silver beard. When Kong climbed back into the outside world for the first in a long time since going into a comatose state, he couldn't remember what had happened to him prior to waking up in the middle of the highland hills of California. Going to a nearby lake, he was horrified to see a ghastly, almost skeletal version of himself staring back at him in the water's reflection as he was failing to comprehend his current mutated state and how this happened to him in the first place. A pained groaning voice of a human female brought him out of his bewilderment and horror as he heard it coming from underneath the ashen remains of the facility. He rushed back to pluck away the rubble until he saw the owner of the pained groan be none other than a bloody dying Amy Franklin; her hair burned off and her skin charred and the doctor barely clinging to life. Sadly, her grip on it was slipping by the seconds and she knew it. Her daughter, Mary, the only other survivor that miraculously survived the explosion by hiding in a nuclear-proof fridge, which protected her from great harm when the reactor imploded while others perished. As she held her dying mother in her arms while weeping inconsolably, Amy said,
"Kong...Mary...forgive...me..."
With those last words, she died with a sad smile on her face.
There was simply nothing Kong could do as Mary cried even harder into her mother's dead body. Already hardened and numbed by everything else he had experienced throughout his life, he still felt a sharp pang of sorrow as even when he wasn't fully conscious whilst still recovering, he saw and sensed that Amy deeply cared for his wellbeing in spite of the criticisms, doubt, and resentment she received from her peers and even from her own daughter. Seeing her dedication to having his wellbeing restored as best as she could, which eventually led to her demise; to now her only progeny wailing and slowly dying on her knees from radiation poisoning in front of him broke his heart in a way that was both hauntingly familiar and troubling to him. He could stay no longer in this now valley of desolation. He turned and slowly walked away as all of the sudden, he felt a massive migraine attack him. Already disoriented, he fell quickly onto his knees, clutching his head from the intensified headache. His memories, including ones that he had no familiarity with, were immediately flooding into him almost all at once in a rather chaotic turn of events, rushing and piercing into his consciousness with horrific mental pain that caused him to blackout afterward, unaware of what was about to transpire next.
Meanwhile, Godzilla was rendered into his berserker state with his body's muscle mass bulked up considerably, his previous healed scars now ironically reopened in an angry red illumination with steam emitted from them, and his eyes now turned crimson-orange due to Anguirus countering his Atomic Heat Ray with his Oscillatory Sonic Roar. As a result, he re-sustained his bleeding wounds, but none of them compare to his wounded ego, which was just as huge and ferocious as his gigantic, indomitable stature. Godzilla was starting to run dry on his nuclear energy reserves on top of having to expend a precious amount of that energy in fighting both the U.S. military's prototype war robot and now, his former ally-turned-enemy armored Titan, Anguirus within a single day. The fight was taking much longer than he would've thought and Anguirus was becoming more than just a nuisance at this point, which stirred him beyond irritable rage. On the other hand, Anguirus was very frustrated and agitated as his stubborn-headed tenacity and aggression had not gained him the sort of upper hand he needed over his bigger, stronger, and yet younger opponent, and the throbbing pain from his blinded left eye and his wounded jaws only worsened his terrible ire. Their actions have turned the stadium-sized crater and the surrounding hilly grasslands of Almeda County into a devastated wasteland with what were once fresh rivers transforming into destructive torrents of irradiated mud and dirty water as they streamed downwards, pooling into the hellish battlefield. After their intense standoff, the ancient reptilian Titans clashed tooth and claw with one another once again, but half an hour into the fight, Godzilla eventually began to get the upper hand over Anguirus. They were so preoccupied clawing at each other's throats that they weren't even bothered by Mangani's more demonic, infuriated roar that electrified the very air all over the battlefield.
Despite his best efforts to defeat Godzilla, Anguirus was overpowered and his usually formidable defenses were overcome by the latter's sheer overwhelming might powered by his unbreakable willpower and his unadulterated hatred towards the entire world. The armored reptile did manage to thrust his horns into Godzilla's belly, but the latter had become so numb to the concept of pain in his more empowered, berserker form that it did little to deter him from grasping his small bony frill, and in a brutal display of strength, Godzilla actually snapped the entire frill off of Anguirus' head. This act of savagery forced Anguirus to back off where Godzilla now chopped hard onto one of his brow horns with his forearm spikes before the armored gladiator could even react to being hit with a savage uppercut to the jaws, which caused him to fall hard onto his back helplessly in a bloody daze before Godzilla inflicted a crushing kick onto his long snout, breaking his nose and nasal horn. For the next agonizing seconds, Anguirus had been beaten into a messy pulp with his underside and stomach sliced and slashed open with deep grievous cuts by Godzilla with his hand claws and forearm spurs. Half of his tail had been maimed after Godzilla bit harshly into it and incinerated it off point-blank with his Spiral Heat-Ray in his jaws. Godzilla stomped hard onto his spiny carapace multiple times, ignoring the sharp pain of the spikes piercing into his feet entirely until he crushed Anguirus' spine in half. He then proceeded to rip off two of the weakened segmented shells from his back entirely and bite into the exposed flesh, which caused Anguirus to shriek extremely loud out in hellish agony as Godzilla kept tearing chunk after chunk of it off with the forceful twisting of his neck, head, and toothy jaws. Beaten to near death with his entire body almost paralyzed to the point of numbness, the armored Ankylosaurus-like crocodilian could only glare defiantly with bruised eyes as he was too weak to even mutter a disobedient growl while Godzilla shouted a lower-pitched, more ominous roar right into his face.
Then just as the Monster King was about to sink his fangs right onto his neck to land the killing blow, he was shoulder-tackled off of Anguirus by a massive black blur body slamming on top of him from above the crater. Mangani Kong arrived onto the battle and had spared the fallen armored crocodilian from having his neck chomped off as he immediately hammered Godzilla viciously right to the head and neck with both of his spiky, armored fists. Godzilla quickly punted the Eighth Wonder of the World off away from him with a strong kick that almost sent the giant Great Ape flying off of his feet as the Monster King slowly stood up to steady his bearings. King Kong II hopped back on all fours while not taking his hateful glare off of his species' long-forgotten nemesis as he gritted his teeth angrily, bearing his long canine fangs at the King of the Monsters. After Godzilla shook himself out of his dazed condition, when his eyes set upon the foolish Titanopithecus brazen enough to interrupt his moment of triumph, he was initially shocked before his disbelief quickly morphed into unbridled fury as he now opened his jaws agape, bearing out all five rows of sharp teeth aggressively at the Gorilla King of the Skull. Godzilla sounded off with a seething, guttural snarl, and Kong responded in kind with a furious hollering growl of his own while coincidentally, thunder sounded off in the distant horizon as dark storm clouds gathered from the horizon in the northeast.
Combat Statistics
Normal Abilities:
Standard Kaiju Strength:
To say that Kong is powerful is like saying that water is wet - when fully angered, the Tagakroatuiwi god is said to be like a hurricane made flesh. His sheer size and mass should in theory prevent him from moving at all based on the square-cube law alone, but presumably, the kaiju mutagens his kind acquired over the generations made his tissues more durable and resistant to the stress of his own weight despite not being biolithic. Why this is the case is a mystery, but what is true is that his muscles are strong enough to not only carry him upright but grant him the ability to perform feats of acrobatics and strength that other monsters of his size often struggle with. Leaping and climbing are as easy to him as dismembering opponents. His arms are his most valuable weapon, powerfully muscular thanks to dense bundles of elastic tissue, tendons. As a result, they give Kong incredible proportional strength, capable of lifting loads equal to or even greater than his own mass. Additionally, the immense strength in these arms allows for Kong to dish out devastating punches capable of shattering the bones of other daikaiju. This damage is further compounded by modified osteoderms adorning each hand, giving off a spiked knuckle appearance that (when combined with the great forces from his punches) can pierce through tough daikaiju armor and bedrock with ease. Aside from sheer brute force, he also has a formidable set of fangs in his mouth that can inflict terrible wounds, and the skin on his knuckles has become calloused and even ossified into bony nodules, both for added protection when walking (when on all fours he walks on his knuckles as gorillas do), and also as built-in knuckle studs to give him extra force when striking. His thick fur and surprisingly tough skin (not unlike the dermal armor of a rhinoceros) are also resistant to the teeth and claws of other monsters, giving him more leeway to rush his opponents and lay the smackdown on them. As each limb is armed with an opposable appendage, Kong can clamber and climb amongst the giant forests of the Isles as well as navigate the uneven terrain of the mountains he lives in. To add to his list of formidable weaponry, the same muscle bundles that give his arms such immense strength also turn his jaws into a set of bone-crackers. A massive sagittal crest combined with robust cervical vertebrae provides numerous attachment points for large muscles and tendons, giving Kong the necessary leverage to deliver such a powerful bite. Within those powerful jaws are two pairs of massive canine teeth and giant molars, equally capable of crunching through hard nuts and plant material as they are with bones and kaiju flesh. As for defense, Kong may seem rather lackluster compared to other daikaiju, but closer examination reveals a highly-advanced form of physical armament split into three different forms. The first is his fur coat. While visually not spectacular, it is a marvel of kaiju evolution, incorporating both floral and silicate elements into its makeup. As a result, the hair is quite resistant to extreme temperatures, acting as an effective insulator against most of the energy attacks of other daikaiju. Furthermore, some of these hairs have evolved in quill-like structures, most of them hidden beneath the fur by a few growing quite long around the shoulder, arm, and head region. The second defense comes with the skin. Being several meters thick on average, alone it can withstand a good deal of punishment. Just beneath its surface, it is further strengthened by sub-dermal osteoderms. This chainmail-like structure provides valuable protection without diminishing flexibility, something crucial when fighting in close quarters. He is known for body-slamming opponents and hurling them about like ragdolls recklessly, being able to go toe-to-toe with even monsters much larger than he is and brawl with the best of them.
Near-Human Intelligence:
Though Kong prefers to solve problems by smashing them apart, he is not a mindless brute, and like many great apes, he exhibits impressive brainpower as kaiju go. Problem-solving, tool use, and social communication are well within his capability. He is especially known for his ingenuity in combat, not merely subduing his opponents with brute force but also employing the circumstances to his advantage and adapting on the fly. Most noteworthy is how Kong is capable of more sophisticated tool use than most other apes, though not to the same complexity as people - he has been known to piece together not only whether certain objects such as boat propellers or anchor chains can be used to his advantage, but what specific properties are most beneficial (using bladed objects as slashing weapons, or choking an opponent with the aforementioned chain as he famously did with Ramarak). He will often use the environment around him to his advantage, setting up ambushes from hidden areas, surprise pouncing upon enemies from above, or distracting them by throwing dust or rocks into their faces. Tool use is yet another skill Kong is incredibly proficient at. When in the midst of battle, he often uses this ability to turn objects in his environment into effective weapons, such as hurling boulders at enemies, using boat propellers and anchors as chain whips, and trees as batting weapons. However, if given the time to prepare for an imminent enemy attack, Kong can use his skills to craft a variety of traps for his enemies to blunder into. He has been observed fashioning pitfall traps, crude snares, and even rudimentary corrals and cages to drive unsuspecting prey or enemies into. This advanced foresight and planning make Kong a dangerous opponent for any creature to face, always planning the next step in his attack before enemies have a chance to retaliate.
While it is debatable as to whether he is truly smarter than other monsters (since even supposedly "primitive" fellow kaiju such as Godzilla exhibit impressive intelligence of their own), it is possible that his heightened ingenuity compared to other monsters and less reliance on simply pounding his foes into submission despite being capable of doing so is because he is less resistant to physical force and damage than other monsters and would much rather avoid a drawn-out fight if he can help it. He is also known to actively avoid kaiju whom he knows will give him a difficult time unless they present a threat to what he holds dear or if he otherwise has no choice on the matter.
Special Abilities:
Conductive Anatomy:
In conjunction with his increased size, Kong's muscle density and muscle structure seem to have adjusted to better support his sheer bulk (with help from the kaiju mutagens if genetic testing is any indicator). The densely-packed muscle bundles that give Kong his immense strength also serve the purpose of powerful electrolytes. The bundles are capable of generating their own energy as well as drawing from the ambient electromagnetic fluctuations within an environment. From there, they work in tandem with the highly conductive hair and metal-infused armor to create a powerful electrical field around his body that supercharges his already impressive strength, its activation indicated by the electrical illumination of the skull-like patterning across his back. This is used to deadly effect by Kong. While he cannot emit a blast of electrical energy like other bioelectric daikaiju, he can infuse this energy with his might to create powerful blows capable of shattering small mountains and creating immense shockwaves that rattle the landscape. There are even a few cases where these supercharged punches end up dismembering and decapitating smaller daikaiju from their sheer force alone. Kong often uses this ability rather sparingly for, just like Godzilla's atomic breath, prolonged usage can be quite taxing to his body, leaving him exhausted if pushed to the limit.
Thundering Devil:
A supercharged, extremely powerful Rage Form of King Kong after being exposed to very copious amounts of electric currents. In such a state, the tufts of fur on his shoulders, his sagittal crest, arms, and the silver skull-like marking on his back constantly illuminate brightly in a yellowish-green hue with electric bolts dancing around them visibly. His aggression increases dramatically, which corresponds with substantial augmentation of his muscle mass by twofold of his normal muscle mass. As a result of this drastic increase in voltage, his electric-based attacks and aura become twice as dangerous and destructive in their damage output as they could now almost fatally injure or cause instant death via instant paralysis of the nervous system, which could inflict cardiovascular failure and/or a heart attack with his electrical shockwaves burning up a Titan his size or larger. In addition, he could also spit out from his mouth large streaming lasers of concentrated electrical energy called the Electromagnetic Lightning Beam. But this constant state of rage is also dangerous for Kong as well if he can't discharge all of his power within a certain amount of time. Failing to do so could also result in his heart, lungs, and brain being burnt out or stressed to the point of dysfunction beyond repair, which could result in him going into a deep coma or death. And even should he succeed in discharging all the stored up excesses of highly concentrated electromagnetic radiation in the form of massive shockwaves, or spitting out electrical beams from his mouth, he would be incredibly exhausted and weakened after exiting this heightened rage mode and would require extensive periods of rest to recuperate back to normal functionality.
Weaknesses:
Fur on Fire:
The thick fur covering most of Kong's body is resistant to most physical damage, but it is extremely weak to fire. His fur traps enough oxygen in the air that he is more vulnerable to intense heat than kaiju that have more room for heat dispersal. Without any heat-resistant properties, Kong does have to keep himself cool via bathing and drinking regularly to prevent the heat generated by his own muscular system from overwhelming him.
Endothermic Metabolism:
Kong, being a mammal of gigantic proportions, therefore, a warm-blooded organism that can regulate its body temperature through internal means, has to maintain his physiology via metabolic rather than behavioral processes. This means he requires a larger nutritional intake than other Titans of similar size or larger that descended from more ectothermic stock. He generally has to feed on large amounts of vegetation or wild game in order to sustain himself, but because his stored power cannot be converted into chemical nutrition in the same way as the radiation-absorbing power of Godzilla or similar Permian-era kaiju, he cannot feed on electricity despite popular belief. In fact, his electrogenesis is itself energetically taxing due to the amount of muscle activity required, and he can easily exhaust himself before making any significant headway if his opponent has the resistance or strategy to bypass it. Simply put, he is not built for drawn-out fights or sustained endurance, and it's often due to reliable sustenance and/or external charge that he could turn the tide of battle around.
Unfettered:
Kong is more mild-mannered than his infamous 1933 predecessor, but not entirely docile, either - while capable of empathy towards other species, he also has a short fuse and almost no sense of restraint or discretion. When in the thick of a fight it's easy for him to get carried away and resort to the most destructive means of accomplishing his objective or neutralizing his perceived enemy. While he does know well enough to at least try and prevent whatever he is fighting for or defending from being caught in the crossfire, he is not always successful and gives in to his urge to utterly annihilate the opposite party has been known to do more harm than good at times. When undisturbed he is often calm enough to act sensibly, but if bothered or pressured too much he may find it increasingly hard to do so, and more than a few occasions have seen him simply give up on this prospect, throw common decency out the window, and descend upon the aggressor in a blind rage. When working with other kaiju, his associates need to be prepared to stop him as much as their shared opponent.
Personality and Combat Style:
King Kong IV, AKA, Congar the Goliath is not only a highly intelligent and emotionally complex creature but a king under much pressure from all directions doing his uttermost best to keep a precarious balance between two worlds whilst protecting what's left of his kind, which is his extended family and the few surviving Kongs outside of his bloodline. The kaiju realm and the world of mankind; one being so diametrically and violently opposed to the other that without the fated intervention of Kong and his kin, the remnants of Skull Archipelago's mankind would have mercilessly perished long ago from the hellish environmental elements of Archipelago's various biomes, or under the savage ferocity of the realm's cold-blooded monsters as the very nature of the competition among these prehistoric beasts is virtually Darwinism taken to its logical extremes. The legacy behind him is that of both triumph and tragedy, which also parallel the larger dichotomic nature of Skull Island itself. Of the others before him, there was Kerchak the Savage, AKA, King Kong I, who made the headlines in New York back in 1933; Mangani the Silverbeard, or King Kong II, Congar's grandfather, the one who had clashed with Godzilla during the 1960s; and finally, Titus the Headstrong, King Kong III, Congar's father, who had clashed fiercely with the Skullcrawlers and died protecting his mate, Congar's mother, whilst she gave birth to him. Kerchak was perhaps the most violent and cold-hearted out of all his three predecessors. It was discovered sometime after the 1933 expedition that the reason that no other members of his kind were sighted when he was discovered is not that he was the last of his kind, but because he had been driven out of the Pharo Island tribe he had been a part of by a larger, stronger Kong, who was the father to both Kerchak and Mangani. The former was very impatient, quite the ambitious hot-head and a "punch first, then ask questions later" type compared to the latter who was patient, calmer, more deliberate, and thoughtfully strategic in his decisions in handling more complex situations that required beyond just brute force to resolve them. Kerchak was eventually kicked out from the troop after striking one of the higher-ranking females who refused his advances, which earned the wrath of his father and the rest of the tribe. Forced to venture out on his own from Pharo Island into Skull Island, Kerchak did eventually become a dominant male of another tribe by defeating and killing its previous silverback male Kong. Unfortunately, his reign proved to be detrimental to that tribal family unit as he ruled with an iron fist through violence and fear due to his hot-headed demeanor and heightened by his unpredictable mood swings. And it was also short-lived in the worst possible manner as his reckless decision to have his family unit invade a specific part of the jungle lowlands that was on Gorosaurus' territory, who are one of the reptilian apex Titan predators, to plunder its rich fruit supply and the abundant wild game down there angered these gigantic, highly derived descendants of Giganotosaurus. Provoked and incensed even further after Kerchak killed the alpha female Gorosaurus who was defending her offspring from him, the rest of the Gorosaurus pack wasted no time in ambushing them shortly after the unsuspecting primates suffered heavy casualties from being caught off guard by stampeding mega-herds of Ogreceratops, titanic kaiju descendants of Triceratops, deep within a valley gorge, in which the stampede was instigated by the pack's adolescent subadult Gorosaurs.
It was a massacre of Kerchak's entire tribe as the carcharodontosaurian theropods spared not one ape they could get their jaws on. Not even the young ones were spared from the carnage. The silverback himself fought like hell against the dinosaurs but ultimately lost when the alpha male Gorosaurus overpowered him after being wounded by the five angry adolescent theropods. Kerchak would have been killed if it weren't for the furious stomping and charging of a young adult bull Ogreceratops that caught onto the juvenile Gorosaurs responsible for causing such panicked ruckus to the herd. The distraction was large enough to keep the alpha Gorosaurus, Gwangi, occupied for Kong to crawl himself out of mortal danger.
However, he was forever scarred and traumatized since then from also witnessing his surviving members of his tribe, including his mate and son, abandon him, becoming lonelier, colder, and having a shorter fuse on his anger and fiery aggression. Without any social bonds, Kong I would begin to lose his sanity, becoming steadily more sadistic and brutish as he fruitlessly sought like-minded company. He would brutally mutilate creatures that threatened him, playing with their corpses and even gleefully tearing them apart without eating them. He had developed a deep grudge and hatred for the Gorosaurus species and continued to wage war on Gwangi and his ilk by employing the aforementioned cruel acts to make them suffer as he had suffered under their claws. As a result, Kerchak had become more antagonistic towards the Skull Islanders and more willing to exact vengeance upon them if they even show the slightest offense towards his solitary existence by going up to their village walls and causing a destructive ruckus by banging on them and roaring loudly to terrify the rest into fearful subservience under the threat of violence. Thankfully, he hadn't eaten any of the Tagakroatuiwi natives or specifically, the tribal women that were offered up to him; thus, was not exactly a man-eating monster the rest of the world viewed him as. Still, they died gruesome deaths such as accidental fatalities by Kerchak or other dangers of Skull Island, but also sometimes from long periods of neglect as Kerchak had trouble relating to them or not knowing what to do with them. When Ann was offered into his life, Kerchak slowly learned to mature into a calmer and more amicable individual and he became very affectionate, friendly, and playful, shown when he seemed to enjoy playing with Ann, first when he knocked her over repeatedly as he seemed to enjoy watching her fall down, then later in Central Park in New York City. Kong I was shown to be very protective, as he was over Ann, risking his own life multiple times to protect her after seemingly having formed a bond. Like an overprotective parent, Kong I reacted immediately to her screams of terror and aided her with no regard for the danger (even the fighter planes, which he couldn't have possibly ever seen before). Kong I has proved to be keenly intelligent as he was capable of understanding certain human words (or at least understanding the meaning of the sound), shown when repeated the sign for "beautiful" to Ann, who had spoken it to him earlier in his lair. His need for social interaction was also the main reason Kong I was incredibly protective of Ann, even towards Jack Driscoll and the crew of the Venture, fighting off dangerous predators in a savage fury and even using himself as a shield in such instances.
Kong IV does not take after most of the original Kong, or rather, his granduncle besides from his short fuse temper which is more so inherited from the third Kong who was his late father, Titus the Headstrong. Kiki is his mate and together, they sired their only male offspring and heir to the family throne, Toa or Congar Jr. Kiko is Kong IV's uncle and strongman guardian of the Congar Tribe. Mangani or King Kong II is his grandfather, and Gobaku is not only his friendly rival but also his cousin on his granduncle's side. Hugo, who is the largest and the oldest living member of Sylvapithecus prudens, a species of giant orangutan-like apes called Forest Gigas, is Congar's best friend, closest advisor, and honorary ally of the Kongs. Kong II, Kong III, and Kong IV are known to have been considerably better-adjusted, with Kong II not having much aggression for humans at all (Kong IV did consume one of the staff manning the 2005 expedition, but regurgitant from him was later found containing the pilot's clothing, and he hasn't eaten people since then). Kong II was addicted to the soma berry instead, but otherwise simply wanted to leave America as much as possible after being transported by Petrox. He was said to be extremely protective of Pharo Island's Kong population, which all belonged to his troop, and the Tagakroatuiwi and Kotonga tribes would speak of him being fiercely loyal to those of his kind who were supportive of one another, strictly punishing threats from both within the troop and without. As collected as he was much of the time, his fury was terrible to behold, but while he could easily rend beasts as big as he was to pieces with his fists and fangs alone, he was also merciful and empathetic to those who earned his respect - the storm god was said to be able to both admonish a member of his kind unlucky enough to jeopardize the troop's safety and valiantly defend them over the course of a single action. It is perhaps this upholding of justice - or as close to it as a giant mutant gorilla clan can get, anyway - that Kong IV still strives to maintain, despite the terrible loss of his parents and some of his family members to the Skullcrawlers prior to the 2005 expedition, and later on, the near destruction of his entire species by a vengeful Heisei Godzilla, who is the last mutated member of the functionally extinct Megalotyrannus lagoensis, in 2020. Kong III is the closest in resemblance to the original Kong in terms of his personality as he could be quite arrogant, stubborn, and quick to lash out at the slightest provocation, but still not as cold and bloodthirsty as Kerchak.
Kong IV himself seems to have adjusted rather well to his role as the defender of the Skull Archipelago, helping any life form that was affected by hazards foreign to the islands, while at the same time respecting the circle of life carried out by his native ecosystem. While Kong I appreciated and admired Darrow as an imperfect, yet beautiful sisterly figure to help ease the gaping hole in his soul created by the loss of his own family, the inquisitive and mild-mannered Kong IV instead sees humans as a miniature echo of his next of kin; as long as they don't wish harm upon him and his habitat, he will defend them, too, almost as though they are brothers and sisters to him. Perhaps the near-extinction of his kin weighs more heavily on him than most believe - giving him the resolve to guard the last vestige of the Lost Continent, its people and wildlife, and more importantly, his family, unto his dying breath.
Next: Manda - The Dragoness Guardian of Mu and Empress of Serpents
Much of my take on Kong, including his design and bio is largely inspired by and credited to DeviantArt users, SkamorySilver, Transapient, and 105697's works. Also direct inspiration from the canonical source material such as the original King Kong (1933), Dino De Laurentiis' King Kong (1976), Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005), Kong: Skull Island (2017), King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), King Kong Lives (1986), King Kong Escapes (1967), and Godzilla vs Kong (2021)