Koumajutsu
The Coming of Bagan
By C. L. Werner
Chapter VI:
Return of the Dragon
The larval Mothra slowly crept from the confines of her shelter. The insect eyes of the mammoth caterpillar gleamed with cunning and intelligence as they focused upon the huge armored beast sleeping just beyond the shelter. The larva knew that the sleeping beast would awaken at the slightest sound. Anguirus had proven a capable sentinel, heeding the commands instilled by the elder Mothra within his mind. The armored dinosaur had twice driven off the ever-hungry Baragon, forcing the ravenous brute to seek sustenance elsewhere. And Anguirus had even more often placed himself between the larva and her freedom, denying the larval Mothra its desire to follow after her parent.
The larva was silent now. She had felt the incredible agony of the elder Mothra as she engaged the terrible Bagan in conflict. She could feel the life-force flickering within her mother, though she was far away. There was little the larva could do to aid her parent now, but what little she could, she would.
With practiced silence, the caterpillar opened her mandibles. A spray of silk, stronger than steel, streamed from the larva's mouth, striking the slumbering dinosaur. For the better part of an hour, the larva sprayed Anguirus with the steely silk, not stopping until he was an unrecognizable hulk beneath a sheet of silk. Then, with a single mournful cry, the larva began to crawl towards the beach.
Anguirus struggled beneath his prison, trying to stop the caterpillar from leaving. But even his great strength would take many hours to break through the encasing cocoon. Anguirus' bellow of anger and frustration rose from the web, muffled and distorted by the silk.
Mothra could spare no time to consider the dinosaur's complaints. With utter determination, the grub-like larva splashed into the cool Pacific waters and began to swim away from Ogasawara, swimming towards the agony that beckoned her.
The KNIFE team listened as Varga, the yeti continued to recite the ancient tale of Bagan's imprisonment, Princess Selina Salno acting as the humanoid's interpreter. The hour had faded, and the afternoon had become dusk, but still, all eyes were upon the yeti, all ears trained upon every word of the Princess.
The mountains shuddered beneath his tread
The ice cracked with his every step
A stone heart within a stone breast
Tuol
Bagan turned from the wailing, dying shape of Kamerus, electricity gathering about his horns. The demon dragon glared at the yet defiant Mothra, snarling at this hateful presence of light and good. But even as he amassed his considerable powers to obliterate his foe, a harsh sound like the grinding together of two glaciers reached the demon's ears. Bagan turned his head, training his piercing gaze upon this latest of all adversaries. Rising from behind a small hill was a massive stone figure. Long had the Inca wizards labored upon the figure's construction, pouring their every last spell in their champion's birth. Many a bloody rite had consecrated the terrible effigy, a huge fanged beast of the jungle with a thorny crown. Even as sorcery fell before science in Atlantis, so did magic thrive in its former colony. Tuol had been crafted as a living god of war, and now the Inca rulers had found a most terrible battle to give their creation its baptism of fire.
Tuol uttered his deep, rumbling groan once more; stomping towards Bagan with a shuddering tread that made the mountains quake. Bagan replied by lashing at the huge idol with the gathered electrical energies he had been preparing to savage Mothra with. The lightning crashed against the gigantic idol, causing it to stop. Tuol seemed to stare at Bagan with gem-like eyes. Then, as if reaching a decision, the idol brought his powerful fist crashing against the ground. A great crack opened, lancing across the battlefield and at last causing the mighty demon to stumble and fall. As Bagan dropped, Mothra swooped in, releasing a shimmering cloud of pollen from her wings, bathing the beast in the reflective spores.
Bagan rose, snarling at both his adversaries. Lightning again crackled from his horns, but this time his fury found a far different target. The electrical energy struck the shimmering dust in the air, deflected by it back upon its source of origin. Bagan howled in pain as his own fury was focused back upon himself.
Mothra chirped at the small triumph and Tuol continued to stomp towards the besieged demon. Bagan snarled at them both. The palms of his clawed hands began to glow with a molten fire, some of his rock-like brown hide dripping into balls of super-heated slag. With a grunt of anger, Bagan hurled the balls of magma at Mothra, catching her unawares as the solid projectiles passed through the veil of glittering pollen. One of the magma balls struck her in the wing, burning it savagely. Mothra shrieked in pain as her wing began to smoke. Disoriented by the sudden wound, Mothra landed, trying to stave off the agony. Bagan snarled and readied a second assault. A great blast of flames lanced into Bagan's body, and the demon staggered away, forgetting his attack on Mothra before this new threat.
From the pits of darkness
Far from the light
Spawn of evil, slave of night
Death Ghidorah
A huge, four-legged beast glared at Bagan with a hate that nearly matched the demon's own. The monster was covered in harsh, angular plates of armor, his massive tail stretching behind him for dozens of meters. Each of the monster's legs ended in a massive clawed foot while two enormous wings rose from just behind the shoulders of the forelegs. Three horned heads, supported upon long, muscular necks, opened their fanged maws to trumpet in rage at Bagan. Long before, another terrible beast had thought to consume the world. From the depths of space, King Ghidorah had come, intent upon devouring the life of the planet. Mothra had battled the evil space demon, dropping the fiend into an active volcano, where he remained for many years before retreating back into the cold between the stars. But in that mighty battle, King Ghidorah had left something of himself behind, his severed tail. The tail burrowed deep below the ground, taking on a life of its own before it was discovered
and enslaved by those who dwelled in the darkness. The wicked Mehars, reptilian rulers of the inner world of Pelucidar, had thought to use the horrific beast to conquer the surface world, to regain the empire King Ghidorah had forced them to abandon for the imagined safety of the inner world. But Bagan was too great a threat, and so, even the evil Mehars had come to an important decision, to join forces with those whom they thought to conquer, to add their ultimate weapon to the ranks of earth's guardians.
Death Ghidorah roared again, his snake-like necks flailing in the chill air, his fin-backed tail lashing against the ground. Death Ghidorah was the bastard spawn of a space demon that had consumed entire worlds to feed his insatiable hunger. He fed upon death, savored death, thrived upon death. The evil beast sent another blast of thermal fire from his three mouths to engulf the form of Bagan. As the smoke cleared, the dragon stood, his rock-like armored hide glowing with heat, steam rising from his form.
Death Ghidorah might feed upon death, but Bagan soon would be Death, and the hunger of the three-headed monster would not deny Bagan his dark ascension.
Bagan snarled, his grunt rolling across the battlefield. A sheet of Bagan's own fire blasted into Death Ghidorah, causing the monster to rear up, wailing in pain. Bagan played the flame towards Mothra, narrowly missing the goddess as she swooped in for another attack. From behind him, the massive idol Tuol tore a gigantic hunk of rock from the craggy face of a mountain and hurled the projectile at Bagan. The makeshift missile crashed against Bagan's armored hide, crumbling against the suddenly electrified body of the dragon. Dust and rubble dripped from Bagan's shoulders, the debris still crackling with the dragon's electrified charge.
Six came to defy Death
Six came to thwart the Destroyer
But triumph they could not
Before they were seven
Bagan slammed into Tuol, crashing against the stone monster's chest with his own massive shoulder. Tuol staggered from the impact, smashing his own rock-like fist against Bagan's jaw. Bagan snorted with pain, glaring at Tuol. With a great effort, Bagan grasped his enormous enemy about the waist, lifting the statue off the ground. With strength beyond belief, the demon lifted Tuol from the ground, hurling him from the dragon. Bagan favored the toppled guardian with an almost contemptuous hiss. Mothra and Death Ghidorah each attacked the dragon, energy and fire slamming into Bagan's armored form. But the dragon had tired of the battle, had become bored with his amusement. His clawed foot kicked the fading Kamerus from his path as he strode back towards the swirling vortex of blackness which hung in the sky.
Upon the hills, overlooking the battle, the tiny Cosmo priestess shrieked. She again prayed and pleaded with the spirit of the Earth, again recited the ancient spells and incantations her ancestors had brought from a far away world. She fell, sagging upon the cold stones, the warmth fleeing her body. She could not know, as she died, that she had not died in failure.
The energies she had awakened within the living planet obeyed the fallen priestess' intentions. Powerful forces began to merge and coalesce within the womb of the planet. From the dying Cosmo's mind, those energies took a form. The Earth itself added its power to the battle, the ground cracking asunder beneath the swirling aspect of death the demon would take and claim as his own. From that crevice crawled a shape not seen before, a newly born spirit, the embodiment of the planet's wrath, the protector of the Earth itself.
In shape, it was like Mothra, though the elegance and beauty of the Cosmos' goddess had been rendered ugly and brutal, as befitted a being born for battle and retribution. A great horn rose from the insectile head while massive mandibles parted in a deep shriek of anger. Beams of energy danced from the beast's multi-faceted eyes, burning into Bagan's demonic form. The dragon bellowed in rage, but Battra stood his ground.
Colonel Breen marched through the massive hanger. Secreted in a remote district of Devonshire, the hangar had once housed airships. Now, the enormous building had been called upon to repeat that role, though with a far different sort of airship.
'Have the tests been run?' the British Colonel asked the man at his side. The Colonel's eyes never left the object of their discussion.
'In simulation, Colonel,' replied the lab-coated engineer. 'We have yet to run any actual tests with the vehicle itself. It is not yet considered advanced to the point where it is safe enough to use a live crew.'
Colonel Breen stopped walking. The officer's body seemed to swell with anger. Still staring at the airship, he spoke at the engineer from the side of his mouth.
'Dammit man!' Breen snapped. 'Have you even seen any of the reports about what that thing is capable of! My God, they don't think that central Afghanistan will ever be habitable again! And, by all accounts, this Bagan devil has survived both Mothra's attack AND the Ruskies' orbital weapon! We need the Gryphon combat ready!'
'Colonel, I appreciate your concerns, but the ship just isn't ready for the sort of test you are considering,' protested the engineer. 'For one thing, the French have yet to deliver the weapon's system they have been developing. For another thing...'
'No excuses,' interrupted Colonel Breen. 'I want the Gryphon ready in two days. In two days I want a crew on her and that ship in the air and on its way to the Irish coast.' The Colonel turned away from the massive armored airship and turned his penetrating gaze upon the engineer. 'If you can't get it done, tell me and I will replace you with someone who can.'
Bagan roared in fury and determination as he stalked toward the death force. Mothra's energy beams slammed into the dragon's back. Death Ghidorah's fires seared his chest. Battra's prism rays singed the dragon's body. Tuol sent gruesome energy of his own slithering from his gem-like eyes, causing organs deep within the dragon to hemorrhage, dark, foul blood streaming from Bagan's nostrils and mouth. Still, the demon made progress.
Spectral flame engulfed the corpse of Soran, and a pillar of smoke rose into the sky. By degrees, the smoke took form. Soran, the phoenix, was reborn, birth from the ashes of death. The mighty Thunder Bird squawked at his killer and dove downwards, sending a sonic thunderbolt at his enemy. As he did so, the dying figures of Inagos and Kamerus summoned their last reserves of strength. Inagos latched onto Bagan's back, sinking his mandibles deep into the demon, fastening himself on the monster like some gigantic tick. Kamerus, with his dying breath, crawled into Bagan's path, though every inch the turtle moved sent spasms of torment lancing through his raw, exposed muscles. Kamerus locked his beak-like jaws about Bagan's foot.
Bagan roared in rage, unable to move with the dead weight of Kamerus and Inagos holding him back. The great demon reached downwards, gripping the skull of Kamerus in his clawed hands. With gruesome effort, Bagan tore the turtle's skull apart, like a child crushing a dirt clod. At the same time, he sent electrical energy coursing into the enormous insect fastened upon his back. More and more power gathered within the body of the locust king until, with a wailing cry, the once dreaded Inagos burst, spraying the combat zone with pulpy yellow ichor.
Bagan advanced once more, but now the attacks of his enemies were having a telling effect. Soran dove into Bagan, slamming his talons into the demon's eyes. One eye was torn from Bagan's head; the other blinded by a glancing slash. But the attack had not been without a price. In attacking Bagan's face, Soran had impaled himself upon the dragon's central horn. Soran cackled a last mournful cry as his body again withered and perished. This time, there would be no rebirth, as Bagan's demonic soul devoured that of the slain Soran, adding it to the captured essences of Kamerus, Inagos and the Watchika. But it was still not enough.
Battra loomed before Bagan, roaring defiance. The dark energies of death began to stream toward the dragon as he called out to them. Battra lunged forward, his own horn piercing Bagan's breast, repeating the terrible fate that had claimed Soran. Bagan snarled at his attacker, but it was a sound not so fierce as before. The dragon's mighty claws closed about Battra's head, ripping it from the worm-like body. Still, the horn glowed with energy and seared the blackened heart it had pierced. With a sound like the shuddering death rattle of a star, Bagan cried out. The dragon's body pitched to the ground, crashing with a force felt across three continents. Bagan, the lord of doom, was dead.
There was not much time, those who had observed the battle decided, to do what must be done. Wizards, priests and sorcerers from across the globe gathered before the terrible dragon's body. They knew that Bagan had fused his soul with that of a demon. They knew that such an unholy merging could have granted the beast a power beyond the mortal. Even as the chanted, prayed and invoked, every one of them feared the slightest movement from the mammoth corpse.
As the gathered mages cast their mighty spell, the body of Bagan began to wither, to lessen as their magic drained off the powerful energies the demon had claimed as his own. The energies were gathered, crystallizing and becoming five great gems, each flawless. Each was the heart of the dragon, for without them, Bagan was no more. The water of life became a sapphire. The fires of destruction became a monstrous ruby. The dreams of the air became a huge diamond. The armor of the earth was a giant emerald. The avatar of death, that terrible power that Bagan had yet to fully assume gathered within a huge sphere of blackest pitch, a block of obsidian. Each of the gems was entrusted to pious and holy men, chosen to take their gruesome burdens to the wilds of the land and there to hide them. The much reduced body of Bagan was carried by Tuol into a shallow cave, where, over time, the waters of the mountains gathered and froze. The last vestige of the awful dragon beast became the
heart of a glacier.
The Meh-teh empire was destroyed, its last vestiges gathering on the battlefield to construct one last city, the hidden monastery-citadel of Shangri-La, a forbidden fortress whose inhabitants guarded the living tomb of the would-be executioner of the world.
The story had been long in the telling. The defeat of Bagan was related in the small hours of the morning, when darkness yet ruled the land. Varga bowed before the assembled foreigners and again at the seated Princess Salno.
'It is an ancient story,' Varga explained in his harsh voice. 'But it has been handed down from every generation of my people with the utmost care, so that not a word has changed since it was first passed from one yeti to another. Now, it seems, there will no longer be a way for this tradition to continue.'
'You must have many questions,' Princess Salno said. 'I shall try to answer them if I may.'
'The creature, this Kamerus,' asked Kenji Yamane. 'He sounds much like the monster Gamera who appeared in my homeland not many years ago.'
'Yes,' replied the Princess. 'Atlantis was a mighty nation. But they grew too proud and too certain of their own wisdom. From the start, it was known that seven would be needed to defeat Bagan. The Meh-teh had no guardian to pit against Bagan. The others nations of the world all sent their own champions, all save Mu. Mu was defended by a great serpent, a creature sharing its kinship with the dragons, and called Manda. But Mu was a pacifist nation and refused to commit its champion in what its philosopher regents considered an act of aggression. Without Mu, the magic number could not be completed, and so it was only by the sacrifice of the Lemurian priestess and the creation of Battra that Bagan was overcome. The outrage of Mu's determined non-violence smoldered long in Atlantis. They developed a terrible weapon to avenge themselves upon Mu.'
'The Gyaos,' gasped Aaron Vaught. 'The Gyaos were created as a weapon to destroy Mu!' Princess Salno nodded sadly.
'Yes, but the Gyaos could not be controlled. After laying waste to Mu, they returned to the shores that bore them. The Atlanteans quickly created Gamera, patterning him after Kamerus, but their second champion was completed too late to save their society...'
'How can Battra have been created to fight Bagan,' Aaron Vaught wondered. 'We had been told he was created to destroy Mothra.'
'The Earth spirit that was given form as Battra replenishes itself each time it is destroyed,' answered Princess Salno. 'Bagan perished before he could consume Battra's soul, but Battra did not take on a physical form again until the Earth was once more in danger. He fought Mothra to try to thwart the Lemurian's attempt to control the earth's weather systems. More recently, though he remembered his rivalry with his one-time foe, he awakened to destroy a comet heading towards the Earth.'
'These legends and tales are all well and good,' stated Peter Daxton, 'but what we need is a way to stop Bagan today.'
'It took seven mighty guardians to thwart him in the past,' said Princess Salno, gravely. 'It shall take seven to do so again. And where can seven such champions be found?'
'Then perhaps all we can pray for is that Bagan never emerges from his hole,' Philip Roche whispered, almost under his breath.
Crimson mists rose from the pit. The Afghans began to shrink away in terror. One Arab man, wearing the tattered raiment of a cleric rose, urging those around him to remain calm. Fiery rhetoric dribbled from the swarthy man's bearded chin. But the fire in his words was soon overwhelmed by an even greater fire.
The pulsating cocoon burst open with the fury of a nuclear blast. Five square miles were consumed in the violence of the cocoon's breaking open. Even from space, the bright flash of destruction could be seen. Men standing within the shockwave were reduced to ash, their shadows seared into sands that had turned to glass. Winds howled in the aftermath of the explosion, rushing in to replace the vacuum created by the intense heat.
And, in the midst of the display, a monstrous figure rose, his gray-plates glistening in the sunlight. Bagan's fanged mouth opened in a silent roar. Death was loosed upon the world once more. Kato watched as the dragon began to stomp eastwards. The necromancer's lips parted and his laughter rolled across the ruined desolation, only a few naked, leering skulls hearing the sound.
There is a blighted place in a wild and desolate region of Japan. Once known as Kishuyu, it is a haunted and shunned land, with many abandoned temples and neglected shrines. The dead, they say, walk the deserted paths, accusing all they encounter for their neglected graves. It is an evil and loathsome region, and few sane men call it home.
A thin figure, like a living skeleton, grinned above the small fire that blazed beneath him. The crippled roof of a dilapidated shrine kept the rain from falling upon the skeleton's black-capped head. Old and feeble, the man cackled with glee as the fat rat he had caught and impaled upon a sharp stick slowly cooked within his fire.
Darkness had always been a part of Eiji's life. Youngest son of a Shinto priest, Eiji had chosen a different path for himself. It had been many years since he had first embraced the darkness, first learned the first minor evocations that established his affinity with the realm of magic. It had been nearly half a century since the man Eiji had been had become the black magician and sorcerer he now was.
Eiji suddenly looked up, the nostrils of his old and withered face flaring, as though smelling the air. There was indeed a smell, though no scent any earthly nose could scent. Rather, there was a spectral change in the air. An act of great evil had happened somewhere, draining off the Earth's shroud of protective manna energy. Only the most powerful of men were able to perform feats of sorcery under the manna shield. But, with the shield gone...
Eiji's toothless mouth spread in a wide and diabolic grin. He stretched his clawed hand outwards. The rat leapt from his fire, scurrying away into the night, its meat still dripping from its bones in a stream of grease, the impaling stick still piercing its form. The black sorcerer laughed again.
Yes, there was a change in the air. Eiji hastened to the back of the shrine and began to gather his belongings. He would have to leave this place, return to the company of men and learn what great calamity had changed the Earth's manna energy.
Learn what had caused it, and learn how Eiji could put that to his own advantage.
The Coming of Bagan
By C. L. Werner
Chapter VI:
Return of the Dragon
The larval Mothra slowly crept from the confines of her shelter. The insect eyes of the mammoth caterpillar gleamed with cunning and intelligence as they focused upon the huge armored beast sleeping just beyond the shelter. The larva knew that the sleeping beast would awaken at the slightest sound. Anguirus had proven a capable sentinel, heeding the commands instilled by the elder Mothra within his mind. The armored dinosaur had twice driven off the ever-hungry Baragon, forcing the ravenous brute to seek sustenance elsewhere. And Anguirus had even more often placed himself between the larva and her freedom, denying the larval Mothra its desire to follow after her parent.
The larva was silent now. She had felt the incredible agony of the elder Mothra as she engaged the terrible Bagan in conflict. She could feel the life-force flickering within her mother, though she was far away. There was little the larva could do to aid her parent now, but what little she could, she would.
With practiced silence, the caterpillar opened her mandibles. A spray of silk, stronger than steel, streamed from the larva's mouth, striking the slumbering dinosaur. For the better part of an hour, the larva sprayed Anguirus with the steely silk, not stopping until he was an unrecognizable hulk beneath a sheet of silk. Then, with a single mournful cry, the larva began to crawl towards the beach.
Anguirus struggled beneath his prison, trying to stop the caterpillar from leaving. But even his great strength would take many hours to break through the encasing cocoon. Anguirus' bellow of anger and frustration rose from the web, muffled and distorted by the silk.
Mothra could spare no time to consider the dinosaur's complaints. With utter determination, the grub-like larva splashed into the cool Pacific waters and began to swim away from Ogasawara, swimming towards the agony that beckoned her.
The KNIFE team listened as Varga, the yeti continued to recite the ancient tale of Bagan's imprisonment, Princess Selina Salno acting as the humanoid's interpreter. The hour had faded, and the afternoon had become dusk, but still, all eyes were upon the yeti, all ears trained upon every word of the Princess.
The mountains shuddered beneath his tread
The ice cracked with his every step
A stone heart within a stone breast
Tuol
Bagan turned from the wailing, dying shape of Kamerus, electricity gathering about his horns. The demon dragon glared at the yet defiant Mothra, snarling at this hateful presence of light and good. But even as he amassed his considerable powers to obliterate his foe, a harsh sound like the grinding together of two glaciers reached the demon's ears. Bagan turned his head, training his piercing gaze upon this latest of all adversaries. Rising from behind a small hill was a massive stone figure. Long had the Inca wizards labored upon the figure's construction, pouring their every last spell in their champion's birth. Many a bloody rite had consecrated the terrible effigy, a huge fanged beast of the jungle with a thorny crown. Even as sorcery fell before science in Atlantis, so did magic thrive in its former colony. Tuol had been crafted as a living god of war, and now the Inca rulers had found a most terrible battle to give their creation its baptism of fire.
Tuol uttered his deep, rumbling groan once more; stomping towards Bagan with a shuddering tread that made the mountains quake. Bagan replied by lashing at the huge idol with the gathered electrical energies he had been preparing to savage Mothra with. The lightning crashed against the gigantic idol, causing it to stop. Tuol seemed to stare at Bagan with gem-like eyes. Then, as if reaching a decision, the idol brought his powerful fist crashing against the ground. A great crack opened, lancing across the battlefield and at last causing the mighty demon to stumble and fall. As Bagan dropped, Mothra swooped in, releasing a shimmering cloud of pollen from her wings, bathing the beast in the reflective spores.
Bagan rose, snarling at both his adversaries. Lightning again crackled from his horns, but this time his fury found a far different target. The electrical energy struck the shimmering dust in the air, deflected by it back upon its source of origin. Bagan howled in pain as his own fury was focused back upon himself.
Mothra chirped at the small triumph and Tuol continued to stomp towards the besieged demon. Bagan snarled at them both. The palms of his clawed hands began to glow with a molten fire, some of his rock-like brown hide dripping into balls of super-heated slag. With a grunt of anger, Bagan hurled the balls of magma at Mothra, catching her unawares as the solid projectiles passed through the veil of glittering pollen. One of the magma balls struck her in the wing, burning it savagely. Mothra shrieked in pain as her wing began to smoke. Disoriented by the sudden wound, Mothra landed, trying to stave off the agony. Bagan snarled and readied a second assault. A great blast of flames lanced into Bagan's body, and the demon staggered away, forgetting his attack on Mothra before this new threat.
From the pits of darkness
Far from the light
Spawn of evil, slave of night
Death Ghidorah
A huge, four-legged beast glared at Bagan with a hate that nearly matched the demon's own. The monster was covered in harsh, angular plates of armor, his massive tail stretching behind him for dozens of meters. Each of the monster's legs ended in a massive clawed foot while two enormous wings rose from just behind the shoulders of the forelegs. Three horned heads, supported upon long, muscular necks, opened their fanged maws to trumpet in rage at Bagan. Long before, another terrible beast had thought to consume the world. From the depths of space, King Ghidorah had come, intent upon devouring the life of the planet. Mothra had battled the evil space demon, dropping the fiend into an active volcano, where he remained for many years before retreating back into the cold between the stars. But in that mighty battle, King Ghidorah had left something of himself behind, his severed tail. The tail burrowed deep below the ground, taking on a life of its own before it was discovered
and enslaved by those who dwelled in the darkness. The wicked Mehars, reptilian rulers of the inner world of Pelucidar, had thought to use the horrific beast to conquer the surface world, to regain the empire King Ghidorah had forced them to abandon for the imagined safety of the inner world. But Bagan was too great a threat, and so, even the evil Mehars had come to an important decision, to join forces with those whom they thought to conquer, to add their ultimate weapon to the ranks of earth's guardians.
Death Ghidorah roared again, his snake-like necks flailing in the chill air, his fin-backed tail lashing against the ground. Death Ghidorah was the bastard spawn of a space demon that had consumed entire worlds to feed his insatiable hunger. He fed upon death, savored death, thrived upon death. The evil beast sent another blast of thermal fire from his three mouths to engulf the form of Bagan. As the smoke cleared, the dragon stood, his rock-like armored hide glowing with heat, steam rising from his form.
Death Ghidorah might feed upon death, but Bagan soon would be Death, and the hunger of the three-headed monster would not deny Bagan his dark ascension.
Bagan snarled, his grunt rolling across the battlefield. A sheet of Bagan's own fire blasted into Death Ghidorah, causing the monster to rear up, wailing in pain. Bagan played the flame towards Mothra, narrowly missing the goddess as she swooped in for another attack. From behind him, the massive idol Tuol tore a gigantic hunk of rock from the craggy face of a mountain and hurled the projectile at Bagan. The makeshift missile crashed against Bagan's armored hide, crumbling against the suddenly electrified body of the dragon. Dust and rubble dripped from Bagan's shoulders, the debris still crackling with the dragon's electrified charge.
Six came to defy Death
Six came to thwart the Destroyer
But triumph they could not
Before they were seven
Bagan slammed into Tuol, crashing against the stone monster's chest with his own massive shoulder. Tuol staggered from the impact, smashing his own rock-like fist against Bagan's jaw. Bagan snorted with pain, glaring at Tuol. With a great effort, Bagan grasped his enormous enemy about the waist, lifting the statue off the ground. With strength beyond belief, the demon lifted Tuol from the ground, hurling him from the dragon. Bagan favored the toppled guardian with an almost contemptuous hiss. Mothra and Death Ghidorah each attacked the dragon, energy and fire slamming into Bagan's armored form. But the dragon had tired of the battle, had become bored with his amusement. His clawed foot kicked the fading Kamerus from his path as he strode back towards the swirling vortex of blackness which hung in the sky.
Upon the hills, overlooking the battle, the tiny Cosmo priestess shrieked. She again prayed and pleaded with the spirit of the Earth, again recited the ancient spells and incantations her ancestors had brought from a far away world. She fell, sagging upon the cold stones, the warmth fleeing her body. She could not know, as she died, that she had not died in failure.
The energies she had awakened within the living planet obeyed the fallen priestess' intentions. Powerful forces began to merge and coalesce within the womb of the planet. From the dying Cosmo's mind, those energies took a form. The Earth itself added its power to the battle, the ground cracking asunder beneath the swirling aspect of death the demon would take and claim as his own. From that crevice crawled a shape not seen before, a newly born spirit, the embodiment of the planet's wrath, the protector of the Earth itself.
In shape, it was like Mothra, though the elegance and beauty of the Cosmos' goddess had been rendered ugly and brutal, as befitted a being born for battle and retribution. A great horn rose from the insectile head while massive mandibles parted in a deep shriek of anger. Beams of energy danced from the beast's multi-faceted eyes, burning into Bagan's demonic form. The dragon bellowed in rage, but Battra stood his ground.
Colonel Breen marched through the massive hanger. Secreted in a remote district of Devonshire, the hangar had once housed airships. Now, the enormous building had been called upon to repeat that role, though with a far different sort of airship.
'Have the tests been run?' the British Colonel asked the man at his side. The Colonel's eyes never left the object of their discussion.
'In simulation, Colonel,' replied the lab-coated engineer. 'We have yet to run any actual tests with the vehicle itself. It is not yet considered advanced to the point where it is safe enough to use a live crew.'
Colonel Breen stopped walking. The officer's body seemed to swell with anger. Still staring at the airship, he spoke at the engineer from the side of his mouth.
'Dammit man!' Breen snapped. 'Have you even seen any of the reports about what that thing is capable of! My God, they don't think that central Afghanistan will ever be habitable again! And, by all accounts, this Bagan devil has survived both Mothra's attack AND the Ruskies' orbital weapon! We need the Gryphon combat ready!'
'Colonel, I appreciate your concerns, but the ship just isn't ready for the sort of test you are considering,' protested the engineer. 'For one thing, the French have yet to deliver the weapon's system they have been developing. For another thing...'
'No excuses,' interrupted Colonel Breen. 'I want the Gryphon ready in two days. In two days I want a crew on her and that ship in the air and on its way to the Irish coast.' The Colonel turned away from the massive armored airship and turned his penetrating gaze upon the engineer. 'If you can't get it done, tell me and I will replace you with someone who can.'
Bagan roared in fury and determination as he stalked toward the death force. Mothra's energy beams slammed into the dragon's back. Death Ghidorah's fires seared his chest. Battra's prism rays singed the dragon's body. Tuol sent gruesome energy of his own slithering from his gem-like eyes, causing organs deep within the dragon to hemorrhage, dark, foul blood streaming from Bagan's nostrils and mouth. Still, the demon made progress.
Spectral flame engulfed the corpse of Soran, and a pillar of smoke rose into the sky. By degrees, the smoke took form. Soran, the phoenix, was reborn, birth from the ashes of death. The mighty Thunder Bird squawked at his killer and dove downwards, sending a sonic thunderbolt at his enemy. As he did so, the dying figures of Inagos and Kamerus summoned their last reserves of strength. Inagos latched onto Bagan's back, sinking his mandibles deep into the demon, fastening himself on the monster like some gigantic tick. Kamerus, with his dying breath, crawled into Bagan's path, though every inch the turtle moved sent spasms of torment lancing through his raw, exposed muscles. Kamerus locked his beak-like jaws about Bagan's foot.
Bagan roared in rage, unable to move with the dead weight of Kamerus and Inagos holding him back. The great demon reached downwards, gripping the skull of Kamerus in his clawed hands. With gruesome effort, Bagan tore the turtle's skull apart, like a child crushing a dirt clod. At the same time, he sent electrical energy coursing into the enormous insect fastened upon his back. More and more power gathered within the body of the locust king until, with a wailing cry, the once dreaded Inagos burst, spraying the combat zone with pulpy yellow ichor.
Bagan advanced once more, but now the attacks of his enemies were having a telling effect. Soran dove into Bagan, slamming his talons into the demon's eyes. One eye was torn from Bagan's head; the other blinded by a glancing slash. But the attack had not been without a price. In attacking Bagan's face, Soran had impaled himself upon the dragon's central horn. Soran cackled a last mournful cry as his body again withered and perished. This time, there would be no rebirth, as Bagan's demonic soul devoured that of the slain Soran, adding it to the captured essences of Kamerus, Inagos and the Watchika. But it was still not enough.
Battra loomed before Bagan, roaring defiance. The dark energies of death began to stream toward the dragon as he called out to them. Battra lunged forward, his own horn piercing Bagan's breast, repeating the terrible fate that had claimed Soran. Bagan snarled at his attacker, but it was a sound not so fierce as before. The dragon's mighty claws closed about Battra's head, ripping it from the worm-like body. Still, the horn glowed with energy and seared the blackened heart it had pierced. With a sound like the shuddering death rattle of a star, Bagan cried out. The dragon's body pitched to the ground, crashing with a force felt across three continents. Bagan, the lord of doom, was dead.
There was not much time, those who had observed the battle decided, to do what must be done. Wizards, priests and sorcerers from across the globe gathered before the terrible dragon's body. They knew that Bagan had fused his soul with that of a demon. They knew that such an unholy merging could have granted the beast a power beyond the mortal. Even as the chanted, prayed and invoked, every one of them feared the slightest movement from the mammoth corpse.
As the gathered mages cast their mighty spell, the body of Bagan began to wither, to lessen as their magic drained off the powerful energies the demon had claimed as his own. The energies were gathered, crystallizing and becoming five great gems, each flawless. Each was the heart of the dragon, for without them, Bagan was no more. The water of life became a sapphire. The fires of destruction became a monstrous ruby. The dreams of the air became a huge diamond. The armor of the earth was a giant emerald. The avatar of death, that terrible power that Bagan had yet to fully assume gathered within a huge sphere of blackest pitch, a block of obsidian. Each of the gems was entrusted to pious and holy men, chosen to take their gruesome burdens to the wilds of the land and there to hide them. The much reduced body of Bagan was carried by Tuol into a shallow cave, where, over time, the waters of the mountains gathered and froze. The last vestige of the awful dragon beast became the
heart of a glacier.
The Meh-teh empire was destroyed, its last vestiges gathering on the battlefield to construct one last city, the hidden monastery-citadel of Shangri-La, a forbidden fortress whose inhabitants guarded the living tomb of the would-be executioner of the world.
The story had been long in the telling. The defeat of Bagan was related in the small hours of the morning, when darkness yet ruled the land. Varga bowed before the assembled foreigners and again at the seated Princess Salno.
'It is an ancient story,' Varga explained in his harsh voice. 'But it has been handed down from every generation of my people with the utmost care, so that not a word has changed since it was first passed from one yeti to another. Now, it seems, there will no longer be a way for this tradition to continue.'
'You must have many questions,' Princess Salno said. 'I shall try to answer them if I may.'
'The creature, this Kamerus,' asked Kenji Yamane. 'He sounds much like the monster Gamera who appeared in my homeland not many years ago.'
'Yes,' replied the Princess. 'Atlantis was a mighty nation. But they grew too proud and too certain of their own wisdom. From the start, it was known that seven would be needed to defeat Bagan. The Meh-teh had no guardian to pit against Bagan. The others nations of the world all sent their own champions, all save Mu. Mu was defended by a great serpent, a creature sharing its kinship with the dragons, and called Manda. But Mu was a pacifist nation and refused to commit its champion in what its philosopher regents considered an act of aggression. Without Mu, the magic number could not be completed, and so it was only by the sacrifice of the Lemurian priestess and the creation of Battra that Bagan was overcome. The outrage of Mu's determined non-violence smoldered long in Atlantis. They developed a terrible weapon to avenge themselves upon Mu.'
'The Gyaos,' gasped Aaron Vaught. 'The Gyaos were created as a weapon to destroy Mu!' Princess Salno nodded sadly.
'Yes, but the Gyaos could not be controlled. After laying waste to Mu, they returned to the shores that bore them. The Atlanteans quickly created Gamera, patterning him after Kamerus, but their second champion was completed too late to save their society...'
'How can Battra have been created to fight Bagan,' Aaron Vaught wondered. 'We had been told he was created to destroy Mothra.'
'The Earth spirit that was given form as Battra replenishes itself each time it is destroyed,' answered Princess Salno. 'Bagan perished before he could consume Battra's soul, but Battra did not take on a physical form again until the Earth was once more in danger. He fought Mothra to try to thwart the Lemurian's attempt to control the earth's weather systems. More recently, though he remembered his rivalry with his one-time foe, he awakened to destroy a comet heading towards the Earth.'
'These legends and tales are all well and good,' stated Peter Daxton, 'but what we need is a way to stop Bagan today.'
'It took seven mighty guardians to thwart him in the past,' said Princess Salno, gravely. 'It shall take seven to do so again. And where can seven such champions be found?'
'Then perhaps all we can pray for is that Bagan never emerges from his hole,' Philip Roche whispered, almost under his breath.
Crimson mists rose from the pit. The Afghans began to shrink away in terror. One Arab man, wearing the tattered raiment of a cleric rose, urging those around him to remain calm. Fiery rhetoric dribbled from the swarthy man's bearded chin. But the fire in his words was soon overwhelmed by an even greater fire.
The pulsating cocoon burst open with the fury of a nuclear blast. Five square miles were consumed in the violence of the cocoon's breaking open. Even from space, the bright flash of destruction could be seen. Men standing within the shockwave were reduced to ash, their shadows seared into sands that had turned to glass. Winds howled in the aftermath of the explosion, rushing in to replace the vacuum created by the intense heat.
And, in the midst of the display, a monstrous figure rose, his gray-plates glistening in the sunlight. Bagan's fanged mouth opened in a silent roar. Death was loosed upon the world once more. Kato watched as the dragon began to stomp eastwards. The necromancer's lips parted and his laughter rolled across the ruined desolation, only a few naked, leering skulls hearing the sound.
There is a blighted place in a wild and desolate region of Japan. Once known as Kishuyu, it is a haunted and shunned land, with many abandoned temples and neglected shrines. The dead, they say, walk the deserted paths, accusing all they encounter for their neglected graves. It is an evil and loathsome region, and few sane men call it home.
A thin figure, like a living skeleton, grinned above the small fire that blazed beneath him. The crippled roof of a dilapidated shrine kept the rain from falling upon the skeleton's black-capped head. Old and feeble, the man cackled with glee as the fat rat he had caught and impaled upon a sharp stick slowly cooked within his fire.
Darkness had always been a part of Eiji's life. Youngest son of a Shinto priest, Eiji had chosen a different path for himself. It had been many years since he had first embraced the darkness, first learned the first minor evocations that established his affinity with the realm of magic. It had been nearly half a century since the man Eiji had been had become the black magician and sorcerer he now was.
Eiji suddenly looked up, the nostrils of his old and withered face flaring, as though smelling the air. There was indeed a smell, though no scent any earthly nose could scent. Rather, there was a spectral change in the air. An act of great evil had happened somewhere, draining off the Earth's shroud of protective manna energy. Only the most powerful of men were able to perform feats of sorcery under the manna shield. But, with the shield gone...
Eiji's toothless mouth spread in a wide and diabolic grin. He stretched his clawed hand outwards. The rat leapt from his fire, scurrying away into the night, its meat still dripping from its bones in a stream of grease, the impaling stick still piercing its form. The black sorcerer laughed again.
Yes, there was a change in the air. Eiji hastened to the back of the shrine and began to gather his belongings. He would have to leave this place, return to the company of men and learn what great calamity had changed the Earth's manna energy.
Learn what had caused it, and learn how Eiji could put that to his own advantage.