Chapter 3: Last few moments of peace.

Diet Building/White House Situation Room.

After long thoughts on both sides of the Pacific, both the governments of the United States and Japan decided to confer immediately with each other as soon as possible as the scale of the incoming threat became very clear. Despite the time difference, both Prime Minister Hiragashi and President Mathew Richardson conferred with their respective staffs before communicating with each other.

As President Richardson turned around in his seat to face the emerging screen, he wondered about the gist of the issue both were about to discuss. At the time, he had dismissed the thoughts of the stories about the battles in the 1990s but then as the reports started coming in, he had personally asked his military chiefs of their estimation of the chances they would have against this new threat. Though they all agreed that they stood a much better chance than the 1990s, what the president saw in the eyes of his commanders told otherwise.

Soon the room darkened and then the screen lit up with Prime Minister Hiragashi and his cabinet along with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Prime Minister started off first by saying, "Thank you for agreeing to this meeting and let me apologize for the lateness of the day over in Washington".

President Richardson smiled amicably before stating, "If this were under normal circumstances I would have to disagree with you on that but considering the circumstances, I can understand and won't hold it against you". He paused for a moment as everyone on both sides of the Pacific relaxed before continuing, "Mind if you give us a briefing on what we're up against".

On the other end, the Japanese Prime Minister nodded before stating, "After 1996, the Japanese branch of the UNGCC decided to eliminate the last vestige of the threat that the center was formed to combat against and we did but one of the center's members who opposed such a move, tried to stop it but she failed". He paused before continuing, "Before she left, she told us a warning that at the time we didn't take seriously but recent events have started to change our minds". The Prime Minister took a deep breath and then started to repeat the message word by word while an aide sent the message by satellite to the White House situation room.

The message read, "For all of the sins that mankind has inflicted upon itself and the world and the inability to learn from them, the darkness will return and all of humanity will be judged and if judged accordingly, the punishment will be annialation".

After reading it, all of the Americans were stunned and Richardson was the first to respond, "How can you be sure that what the message is saying is correct". Some of the others had the same look of incredibly as they re-read the message again, hoping that they would have missed something but then Hiragashi nodded in affirmation of the information. Seeing the look in the Prime Minister's eyes, the US president asked, "What do you have in mind for the emergency"?

The man on the other end of the line replied, "All we can do is keep watching and hope to be ready to respond to the threat when it arises". He paused for a moment then replied, "I'll let the Minister of Defense brief you in". Hiragashi sat down while Defense Minister Nakamori briefed his American counterparts".

"I wish I had good news but unfortunately I don't since we didn't really think that we would be facing a threat like this again". He paused for a moment, "As you all know, we disassembled all of the facilities needed to produce the weapons to combat the threat and it is going to take us a while to restart it especially without drawing attention". He typed in a few commands and then new images flashed upon the screen. As all of the American generals saw, they were blueprints for the weapons of the last war; many of them nearly straight out of sci-fi movie and two of them were huge cyborg type machines. Clearly, Nakamori wasn't kidding when he mentioned about the scale of the preparation needed to combat the threat.

His counterpart, Defense secretary Henry Davidson replied, "True you may be right but we can immediately start construction on the smaller weapons such as the maser planes and tanks. He then looked at some of the other notes about the use of bio-weapons and paled at the thought of using them even if the Japanese ensured that they were safe and posed no harm against the civilian population. After a while of thought, Davidson replied, "Have some of your attaches meet at the Pentagon with mine and then we can discuss more about the problem". The Japanese Defense Minister nodded at the compromise and then it switched to discussion on the international aspect of the threat with United States secretary of state Alex Rusk and Japanese foreign minister Noboru Tamura talked about how to handle the rest of the world reaction to the new monster threat with the emphasis the avoidance if possible of weapons of mass destruction. The discussion along with other matters would indeed take up most of the Washington DC night and lots of caffeine style drinks to remain awake and alert.

NORAD/NASA.

Though it was late evening, there were still people at work at mission control in Houston. The people still there, helped maintained the systems on the different satellites and the International Space Station orbiting around the Earth as well as observe the way the universe worked.

The person in charged of the night shift drank another round of coffee when he was interrupted by one of the operators rushed in while taking huge deep breaths, "Sir, we've just spotted three UFO's heading towards Earth at mach 2. The boss replied blandly, "It's just probably debris or the like". However the operator replied, "It isn't and it is being picked up by both the international station and the satellites facing Mars". The boss replied, "It still could be debris and such". Then the operator replied, "The three objects are moving as if they're alive and they're much larger than asteroids". That finally got the man's attention as he immediately put his cup down and rushed back to the control center to monitor the UFO sightings, "Have we been able to get pictures of the objects". One of the others shook his head and the manager replied, "Get me online with NORAD".

He was soon online with the commander of NORAD; General Larry Arnold who had also just came from a similar briefing with his commanders and immediately got to the point, "Has NASA identified the objects that are approaching".

The manager shook his head and said, "We were hoping that you'd have better information than we have at the moment". The silenced passed for a few seconds before the commander of NORAD replied in answer.

"We do know that those three are living objects and when I passed around one of the nations, the Japanese replied that they would look it over". Arnold paused before saying, "I got the same answer when I forwarded it to the president". He then paused, "Can you send me the information you have so far so that we can make a determination of the threat". The NASA director nodded in understating and they both sighed off the attention turned back to what the satellites spotted and whether they were a threat or not.

Caspian Sea.

The three Russian Mi-28H Havoc helicopters along with Mi-24H Hinds flew over the sea as the helicopters searched the sea below with their sonar buoys. The helicopters had flown on for the last four hours and already boredom was starting to hit the crews of the helicopters.

On the lead Mi-28H helicopter, the crew was grumbling at the job they were conducting. Many wondered why the hell they were patrolling in a landlocked sea instead of the oceans since the rumors going about were most certainly false.

The Caspian Sea along with the deep forests of Siberia contained huge reserves of oil essential for reviving the Russian economy and strengthening the rest in the age of ever increasing energy consumption and war in the Middle East. Unfortunately recently, several incidents occurred that resulted in the complete destruction of the oil platforms. At first the authorities speculated that Islamist terrorists caused the destruction but as details came in about the destruction of the platforms, it seemed that an unknown phenomenon was responsible. In response, the Russian military deployed several air and helicopter units to patrol the area along with inland naval units. Even with the increased security, more platforms came under attack and more deaths occurred as the phenomenon struck suddenly without warning.

In front, the pilots were conversing together as they checked the systems and hoped that the helicopter stayed in the air until they returned to base. Most helicopters were already pushed to the limit of their endurance and even with increased funding for the military; there were a lack of spare parts to go around as the troops in Chechnya received first priority on supplies and weapons. Both pilots laughed blandly at the thought after surviving their tours of duty in Chechnya. The crew continued on with its work.

Under the water, a huge shadow glided through at flank speed. The shape consisted of an armored shell with four legs and a large tail. As the monster opened its mouth, a large amount of bubbles flowed out as the monster expelled carbon dioxide from its system.

Arctic Ocean.

The iceberg that served as the creature's prison already started to melt at a faster rate and the glow within the creature increased in brightness to a point that those on the Alaskan coastline started to notice it. Some did but they all considered the phenomenon natural for the area at this time. However, the more superstitious residents sensed that something was in the air and that a great horror was making its return known to all who took the threat seriously.

Inside, the creature's eyes started to open for a longer period and they glowed blood red that would clearly demoralize anyone who survived long enough to peer into them. The monster's eyes moved for a few moments as if surveying its surroundings as if preparing to go on a hunt in which the prey would be immense.

Tokyo, Japan.

The young woman slept peacefully in her bed when suddenly, she started to shift and turn as another nightmare invaded her mind. She tried to cover her ears and whispered pleas for silence as unseen voices bombarded her mind with thoughts of fear and death. She nearly screamed in fear when an image of a moth took form. The moth spoke a few words to the former psychic before disappearing in a show of golden particles that calmed the woman down. The woman instantly recognized what the image represented and for the rest of the night, she could not get any sleep for the threat that she feared was truly coming true. She looked out at the city of Tokyo and subtly moved at the hauntingly beautiful sight of the metropolis and as she turned to the skyline of Shinjuku, she replied, "So it finally begins".

Note: Sorry for the prologue but I wanted to try and give introductions for the monsters participating in the new war against humanity.