(A/N: It is my hope that this story's climax will prove to be the opposite of the limp, tepid, forty-five minute epic that closes off Godzilla vs. Destroyer. We are getting near to the bitter end.
By the way, the Purple Dooms are entirely a construct of Osaka's mind—they're like the generic "bad feeling" Star Wars characters always get before everything goes to pieces.)

"Why are we still here?" Kazuki whined. "Why the heck are we still here?"

"Quit moaning. We're at least a block away," Osamu was once again leaning on his bench, his coat flowing just as before. Kazuki had shed his and now considered donning the ski mask again; the less that showed he was associated with this maniac, the better. "I want to see what they'll do."

"Why?"

"Where's your sense of adventure, man?"

"My sense of—I think even clapping eyes on the friggin' thing was enough adventure for me! Why does it matter what they do?"

"Kazuki, there's a nest of monsters in the middle of our district. I'd say their response matters a great deal."

"Can't you trust them to--?"

"Trust in authority is for dupes and pansies who--!"

"—prefer not to be eaten by five-meter-tall poisonous spiders! I never thought I'd have to be the voice of reason, here!" Kazuki shoved his shoulder. "Or ever! Dude! What's gotten into you? You always talked about this sorta crap, but I didn't think you'd risk your life to see what--!"

"I'm not risking my--!"

"Oh, would you just shut up and come away!"

"Look, Kazuki," Osamu splayed his hands. "This isn't like anything we've ever seen… 'cept when that statue of yours came to life. Our approach to life has to change in situations like this, and everybody breaks in different directions."

A trio of black vans rushed past them and screeched to a halt outside of the aquarium building. SWAT-armored Special Forces men dismounted in a flurry and armed themselves from racks in the back of the cars. Their weapons, Osamu could see, weren't the automatic rifles he expected, but strange carbines without apparent magazines.

"Look!" he said, "Those weapons! It's Mihama Industries, I'm sure of it."

"Yeah, yeah," Kazuki said disinterestedly, grabbing his friend's elbow. "We'll hear all about it on the news."

"It'll be filtered!"

"You won't be killed!"

"But I have to--!" before their argument could continue, a horrible shriek slapped into their ears and buzzed through their chests. A creature much like the one they'd seen in the lobby, though somewhat smaller, crashed through the glass outer doors and stumbled down the stairs to the sidewalk.

It seemed that the beast normally had six legs, but only four were working at the moment, dragging it agonizingly across the ground. One of its mantis-like claws punched into the top of a van to haul it upright, wedge-shaped head thrashing as it let another screech.

With a barely audible snap, a cyan beam reached out of the building and licked across the top joint of the monster's remaining left-side leg, which broke off and deposited it cruelly on the ground again. Two men emerged from the building and stitched it with their freeze rays (if that was what they were), reducing it to a pile of glassine shards.

The boys stared in absolute shock for a few seconds. "Right-o, then," Osamu finally said, "Time to go, then."

Mechagodzilla's foot was impressive enough on its own. By accident or design, moving through the maintenance areas, control rooms and storage spaces stacked alongside his scaffold would give visitors that dramatic 'camera-pans-slowly-up-the-body' effect often seen in monster movies and superhero shows.

At the deepest level, alongside his monstrous metallic cuticles, there was naught but the silo entrance, a collection of dusty crates, a metallic spiral stair and a freight elevator. (Built into the side of a mountain, the complex could be entered from its peak or base.) Their guide was tardy for some reason, but only Tomo would've thought to be impatient this soon, and her attention was elsewhere at the moment. "Okay, Kagura," she stage-whispered, "Here's the plan: I'll yell, 'fire!', and you subdue the guards while they're distracted. Then I'll use my mad hotwiring skills to break the lock and…"

"Maybe you should conspire a little more quietly?" Sandra suggested. "I'm pretty sure Mr. Mihama can hear you."

He had. He was chuckling.

"Oh, you're laughing now, you're laughing now, 'Hiro! But just wait! Let's see if you're still laughing when Kagura and I are rampaging through Downtown Tokyo in-!"

"I'm out," Kagura said quickly.

"But Osaka will help me, won't you?" The Space Cadet shrugged amiably. "There you go, ha! You'll never stop the combined mental might of the anti-bonkuras! Our genius will…"

"Honestly, Tomo!" Yomi snapped. "Why would you even think to try and do something like that?"

"To see if I could! Duh!"

"But Ms. Tomo," Chiyo put in, "You wouldn't be able to do anything with Mechagodzilla anyway. Control has to launch him before he can even move."

"Jeez, Ms. Know-it-All! We haven't even taken the tour yet!"

"Yeah," Mr. Mihama added, "How did you know that?"

"Well…" It was just so hard not to look when you found something marked "Top Secret" on a coffee table. Chiyo smiled bashfully. "Um, educated guess?"

"Uh huh," he said, voice skeptical but in good humor. The whole secret documents thing was his fault in any case, and at this point it either had to be a joke or a huge, antagonistic rift between them. They both knew which they'd prefer.

"Welcome, girls!" a kindly, reedy voice called. This would be a good description of its owner as well, a tall, thin fellow walking lightly down the spiral staircase to their level. A labcoat, glasses and nearly-white, flyaway hair made him the living embodiment of the stereotypical absentminded professor. "I'm Dr. Elisud, and I'll be your guide today."

That guy's trouble, Osaka decided. For some stupid reason, though, she couldn't bring herself to be too concerned. There was a buoyant feeling within her, the sense that she was protected and that she wasn't—and never would be—alone. And besides, she had to admit to herself that any misgivings she had could just be Osaka being Osaka…

But then Dr. Elisud smiled and she knew all of her worst suspicions were true.

It is not necessary to go into great detail about the Special Forces foray into the infested aquarium building. They all trooped in and spread out through the building in their neat, professional little formations, all hefting the new Mihama Industries Freezer Lasers (in spite of the name, these weapons had little or nothing to do with the actual process of laser cooling) and staring tensely at their requisite motion sensors.

Gladly, before the constant pip, pip, pip! could drive any of them mad, the Destroyers attacked. For an eternal few minutes it was absolute mayhem, chunks of monster and armored bodies flying this way and that, cyan lasers snapping and flickering against the bizarre purple beams the beasts were spraying from their inner jaws, claws flashing, rifle-stocks clopping, shouted orders, bestial shrieking and some idiot yelling, "Game over, man, game over!"

It quickly became clear that the monsters were far too many and more drastic measures were called for. Dragging their wounded, the Special Forces retreated from the doomed building and stood ready for the next phase of their assault.

The freight elevator lumbered up its track, its grumble pierced only by the distant clatter of technicians at work and Elisud's droning voice. None of his group was really paying attention; they were busy staring at the gleaming bulk of Mechagodzilla as it was slowly revealed to them. Even Yasuhiro had never seen him close-up before, and he happened to know everything to good doctor was saying anyway.

"Do you smell that?" Kaori asked softly. Sandra turned towards her just as a band of shadow passed over her face, leaving her eyes to gleam faintly in reflected light. For that moment, their color twinged in her memory, but she didn't give it any thought. "Not the oil or metal… it's familiar…"

"Huh," Sandra sniffed the air gamely, but shook her head. "Nope."

"And as for armament," Elisud said loudly, instantly gaining Tomo's complete attention, "We managed to cram quite a bit onto him. Chromatic death ray from the mouth, high-power masers in the eyes, rockets launched from the shoulders and hips, energized blades and shock anchors in his forearms and, can't forget this one, the Absolute Zero cannon mounted in his torso."

"Whoa…" Tomo was almost drooling. Unbeknownst to her, Sakaki, Kagura and Yomi all stood poised to restrain her should it prove necessary.

"Does it really bring things to-?" Chiyo started.

Elisud had a good laugh at that. "Ah, somebody thought the old name wasn't dramatic enough. Our prototype only cooled its targets to about negative 200 degrees centigrade, and since it's much larger, this one is less efficient. It comes to about negative 170 centigrade, on average."

Chiyo shivered. He was so casual about it!

"In addition, we can add external armaments, such as heavy arc rocket launchers and forearm-mounted railguns. One of our guys even tried to design a fighter called Garuda that could fuse with Mechagodzilla and increase his power…" their guide shook his head, wondering at the Voltron-esque-ness of it all. "Last I checked, he was demoted and found work as a parking attendant."

"But, uh, if you've already got a giant robot dinosaur," Yomi asked, "Is that really so far-fetched?"

"Yes." Elisud said flatly. The subject was closed.

"I was wonderin'," Osaka commented, staring up at the dread weapon's distant face as it became visible through the metallic forest of its scaffold. "Can he spin his head around to make a force field?" Everybody stared at her. "'cause it seems like it'd be real handy if he could."

"…what?" Elisud finally recovered after a good five-second pause. It was so much what she'd said as it was how… for a surreal moment, the notion that a giant robot should be able to generate a force field by spinning its head was so perfectly natural that it seemed odd it had never occurred to him before. The Osaka Effect strikes again! "Er, no."

"Too bad," she said airily, "I got a feeling you might need it."

"Actually, I remember now that one of the junior technicians suggested something like that."

"Oh! So you met my un…?" She was cut off as the elevator crunched to a stop and they started to disembark. Elisud wasted no time, suddenly talking in double-time and shooing them off of the elevator almost frantically. Kaori looked around uneasily; that familiar scent was stronger now, and in fact almost seemed to…

"Welcome to the secondary control level. Here many of Mechagodzilla's less vital functions are monitored and communications with the pilot are maintained. Normally the pilot controls MG remotely from a specialized Osprey we keep nearby, but in emergency, he can also be piloted manually… you can see the entrance there." He raised one long finger to indicate an unremarkable hatch on the robot's side at the end of a narrow catwalk. Yomi tensed, but her best friend/mortal foe showed no inclination to make a sprint for it.

The group filtered down a wide aisle through the middle of the secondary control room; there were only about ten people working at the various consoles. This space had obviously been wrested from the warehouse/workshop that was the rest of the complex with great difficulty, giving it a dark, grimy, informal NASA vibe.

"It's kind of a mess," Elisud apologized, "Since we had to deploy Mechagodzilla so quickly, we didn't have time to arrange a proper control room… Primary Control is even worse. This is the point of the tour where I was supposed to show you the surprise that Daley was talking about when he pitched the tour to you, Mr. Mihama."

Kaori suddenly recognized the scent. With a sharp gasp, she grabbed Sakaki's arm and pulled her a large, jerking step away from the doctor. "It's--!" And a purple beam lashed across the ground where Sakaki would have been, leaving the metal unscathed but filling the air with the reek of ozone.

"I'm very sorry…" Elisud stood aside, "But he knows where my family lives."

"What the hell is this?" Yasuhiro stepped in front of Chiyo and drew a gun from inside of his suit-jacket. Elisud just hung his head and sat down, perhaps hoping for the shot to come. "Where did that beam come from? What-?"

"You'd better put that away," Lord Ogawa admonished, rising. He'd been sitting nondescriptly at one of the consoles that whole time. As he eyed his rival, his hand strayed towards a purple bundle on the console, but he decided that the cape would only make him look silly.

"What… how did you…? But they caught you!" Yasuhiro cried.

"They caught my brother, and I've… persuaded him to play along for the time being. I'm sure you wonder why security hasn't dragged me away…" A great spidery/mantis monster climbed down the wall from where it and its cohort had been hiding in the shadows. It took up a position behind him and glowered at the girls hungrily. "You look so baffled, Yasuhiro. I trust you haven't seen a SSS9 org-chart in years. If you did, you'd know that I have hundreds of agents that work for Mihama Industries, some that have since you founded it, in fact. This whole time you've prided yourself in holding the keys to my destruction, but now you see the reverse was true. What is that phrase again…? Ah, yes. As it turns out, all your base are belong to me."

"And now you're going to stand here and gloat?"

"Of course! What's the good of being so devious when nobody knows you are? I've been orchestrating everything! I even arranged the infestation of Destroyers at that aquarium building!"

"But why the aquarium?" Yomi didn't care that she was playing along; it struck her as a dumb first target and she wanted to know why. Too, she'd happened to notice that one of the men watching was edging along the wall; since it seemed his design was against Ogawa, she wanted to make sure he had a chance at it.

"Ample food for the little beasties, enough water for them to make their solution, and a crowd the next day. It was my hope that they wouldn't be discovered until the aquarium was opened again so that there'd be a horrific attack and another blot on your reputation; I even had phony sources lined up to say that Mihama Industries had created the Destroyers to engineer a need for their products. It would've worked, too, if not for you meddling kids!"

Sandra pulled an eyelid down and stuck her tongue out at him. Showing that she was truly a wise and impartial judge, Yomi swatted her just the way she would Tomo.

"I'm very sorry, by the way, Chiyo-chan. The attack on you and your friends was nothing personal. I just needed an effective way to get at your father."

"But why?" Chiyo cried. "Why did you have to do any of this? What cause could be worth hurting all these people?"

"Seriously. I want to hear this," her father added. "Whatever it is, it's surely not what we founded SSS9 for. And I warn you, if you say 'world domination' or something like that, I might die laughing."

"World domination!" Ogawa pronounced, then, after an awkward pause, looked at him askance. "Liar."

"It's not as funny as I thought it'd be."

"Well, I have all the aces here. All of the men here are under my thumb and about a dozen Destroyers are clinging to the rafters… whereas you've got your little gun and a gaggle of schoolgirls. I almost feel bad for doing this." He raised his hand. "You… all of you… are going to be erased."

"One last question!" Kaori blurted.

He lowered his hand negligently. "Sure."

"Um… how…?" Kaori's eyes fell on the creature behind him. "How did you make 'em so big?"

"Oh, I don't feel like going through the science, but… homina…" Lord Ogawa was just now noticing how inappropriately huge the monster by his side was. Far, far larger than the limit his scientists had set… "How did you get so b-?"

Thinking quickly, Sakaki clapped a hand over Chiyo's eyes. Thus, her only experience of Lord Ogawa's demise was to hear a whoosh, a dull whack! and feel a tiny fleck of something wet hitting her cheek. The Destroyer leaned back and spread its claws, looking at the humans as if to say, "Yeah, what?"

"Take cover!" somebody, somewhere yelled. It was sound advice.

Nine MI Heavy Laser Tanks had been hastily modified with larger versions of the freeze rays when the Destroyers had surfaced, and now they growled down the road towards the infestation. The area had long since been evacuated, of course, so there was no traffic or pedestrians to fall beneath their awesome treads.

The war machines arranged themselves at strategic points around the aquarium building, (it had a large parking lot and a fairly impressive yard to its name, so this was not difficult) and took careful aim. Alongside the lead tank, the Special Forces commander and one of the older technicians watched the proceedings tensely.

"Are they all ready?" the commander asked.

The other man checked his board. "Yup. Hit it."

"Open fire!"

Thick cyan beams lashed out and dug into the sides of the building. Everything they touched was instantly frozen, brick and plaster cracking apart and shattering under the building's weight. The Destroyers suddenly found their haven collapsing on them and started to pour out of the building… which was a huge mistake. Those few that escaped the scything beams from the tanks were taken out by sharpshooters. As the building vanished into a frigid mist, it looked like an absolute rout in the favor of mankind. Unfortunately, the Destroyers were getting a lot better at this whole combining thing…

"Cease fire!" the commander called. "Wait for that mist to clear, then Delta and Bravo teams can go in to mop up. I'll need somebody to—uh." It took a second or two for his mind to process that he was suddenly standing in a shadow. He looked up slowly and observed with strange detachment that a colossal armored leg was arcing up out of the frigid cloud to plunge through the row of buildings across the street, raining debris on his men.

The new monster, the one, true Destroyer, pulled free of the aquarium's remains and shook itself off. A few fast-thinking tank commanders opened fire on it, but their beams didn't do anything. Ignoring them, the Destroyer took an experimental swipe into the air with its wicked claws and shrieked a challenge to the world.

"Whoa…" the technician said, "Now that's what I call cold fusion!"

"Shut up, Kasuga."