"So, does anybody here know what our Supreme Commander is up to?" asked one of the officers waiting out in the hall. There was a chorus of negatives. "Hmm… so all we know is that he's locked up in a darkened Command Room with six women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, one of whom is unconscious. Moreover, before the last one went in, we heard one of them squeal real loudly."
"That's about the size of it," another agreed.
They all looked at each other.
"No… no way!"
"Now, of all times!"
"Are we allowed to do that with prisoners?"
"The beast!"
They all looked at each other a while longer.
"All right!"
"Go, boss!"
"Whoo!"
There was a round of high-fives and they went back to waiting patiently… and listening very carefully.
The view through Dimension Tide's targeting system was absolutely perfect. The alien mothership hung over downtown Tokyo, a great, menacing accretion of twisted black machinery that might have been conceived by Jack Kirby after a bad acid trip. Patches of the city were visible through gaps in its mighty hull, and in one such gap, near the very center, Godzilla grappled with his space-born sparring partner. The crosshairs hovered menacingly right over Space Godzilla's head.
"Boy, are those alien scumbags ever going to get it!" The General crowed, bringing a fist down on the desk before him. "Prepare to fire the Dimension Tide!"
Naturally, his staff wasn't as enthused about the idea.
"Sir," an advisor objected, "Are we certain that the Gaijin won't be able to counterstrike once Space Godzilla is gone?"
"Yeah," another added, "They have other flying monsters!"
"What, like Rodan?" a third asked.
"Rodan. Isn't he the one with all the laser whips and stuff?"
"No, no, he's the pterodactyl looking guy."
"Oh, okay. Sorry, there're just so damn many of them! How are we supposed to keep track?"
"Anyway…" the first objector cut them off. "Are you sure this is a prudent action, General? There will be no way to avert total war if we fire."
"We can take 'em…" the General said confidently. "Our MOGURA corps can smash anyone and anything they send!" He was referring, of course, to a newly-built army of giant robots that won't figure into the story at all and you can just forget about. "With this weapon, we will destroy their most powerful monster and their center of operations in one stroke! Let's move, people!"
"No way, man!" the second advisor was saying, "Rodan would totally whip Iris's butt!"
"Wait, who are we arguing about again?" the third asked.
The General struck his desk with both fists. "Let's move, I said!"
"From beyond the point of no return, no life, no hope…" Yukia turned away from the viewport and looked her prisoners over. "Masema, the Earthmen are using their weapon. Be sure to keep us close."
"Damn, already?" Masema laughed. "That didn't take long at all." He leaned over the control table and started talking softly, apparently giving orders to a distant engine room. The vessel hummed beneath them as its mighty thrusters came to life for the first time in months.
Ayumu lay on the deck, staring disconsolately at Chiyo and Sakaki. They would have made a beautiful picture if they weren't teetering on the edge of death. And here she was with a cosmic being at her beck and call, yet powerless to help either of them. "Go on," the Space Cadet whispered to Gathra, "Get outta here! Don't let her see ya…"
A tiny, fluttering mote of blue light before her, Gathra did his mute best to show how upset he was about leaving her. He had to know that there was nothing he could do, that the phantom beastie following Yukia would crush him like, well, a bug, but still he refused to abandon her. Touching, but annoying.
How could she convince him to leave? She considered offering him pastries, but quickly dismissed that as the seventh dumbest idea she'd ever had. There had to be some… "Go help the big guy," she whispered. "He needs ya more."
Gathra obviously didn't quite believe her, but he also wasn't one to stick around when he wasn't wanted. Passing effortlessly through the deck, he made his uneven, spiraling way down towards the monstrous battle. Ayumu breathed a long sigh of relief; she'd managed to salvage one part of this horrible mess, anyway.
"What's that about, hmm?" Yukia asked, kneeling in front of her.
"I, uh, just realized. I… left my stove on."
"A little late to be worrying about that, isn't it?"
Ayumu looked away. "…guess so."
Yomi stared in amazement. That was the lamest recovery she'd ever heard in her life (excepting maybe that "my dog was hit by a car" one Chiyo had made to another alien invader all those years ago) and yet their captor had fallen for it! Maybe she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed after all? There had to be a way to take advantage of this…
Beneath, Godzilla and Space Godzilla continued their back-and-forth boxing match, neither tiring, every blow a terrific thunderclap. Death rays ripped back and forth across the city, loosing avalanches of rubble into the empty streets to dance and shudder with the force of their titanic footfalls.
With Gathra's arrival, at first tiny and innocuous, the field changed dramatically. As you may recall, in his first and only turn as Earth's protector, Gathra started by declining to fight himself, giving a flood of power to Godzilla to use instead. Maybe he wasn't a Guardian anymore, but he'd held on to some of his old tricks.
SG faltered in surprise as the Earth monster was suddenly coated in dark blue flames. Either Godzilla didn't notice or he remembered the feeling, because rather than show any surprise, he simply lunged forth, grabbed the imposter by his throat, hauled him into the air and threw him. The alien crashed down in the Tokyo International Forum and left a forty-meter-wide rut through Marunouchi.
This clamor couldn't have been doing much for the morale of those unfortunate people trapped in the underground Godzilla shelters, but they were being cleared out by Enryu. Over the course of a half-hour, the brave men and women of Enryu careened through the treacherous streets and checked every shelter, coming as near to saving every single person in Tokyo as fallible humans could ever hope to.
Kagura sat in the back of a jeep, still trying to rub sleep from her eyes and simultaneously comfort a squalling infant. The child's parents looked like they could do with some comfort themselves, but there wasn't a lot she could do for them. As they pulled past the safe radius and coasted to a stop, the driver handed a can of juice back to her. "Well, that's it," he said, "That was our last run."
"Thanks," Kagura drained it in one go.
"No problem," he replied. "Just wish we could drink on the job. Uh, sir? Ma'am? You can get off now. See that building there? They'll have food and…"
Space Godzilla staggered to his feet and spewed another ray at his opponent, but it just sluiced off of those mysterious blue flames and vanished. The answering beam hammered into his stomach and drove him skidding through another row of buildings. After taking a moment to contemplate his advancing doom, SG's crystal shell grew around him and he blasted off for the horizon.
Godzilla looked after him in disappointment and confusion, then turned in surprise as the mothership above started to pull away. He took a few steps after it, then turned back the way SG had gone. Before he could decide, though, something else grabbed his attention. His baffled reptilian gaze turned skyward just an instant before the fury of Dimension Tide fell on his head.
"So do you think the safe zone is wide enough?" the driver asked.
"Oh, yeah," Kagura crushed the can in her hand and tossed it over her shoulder casually… never to hit the ground. "We're—!" A wall of air slammed into them and the jeep lurched backwards, parking break shrieking in protest. Both rescue workers instinctively leapt free before it tumbled back into a brand new crater.
"You okay?" the driver asked when the wind had settled.
"Of course not!" Kagura stood angrily and whipped a rock into the crater. "Damn it, the one time that idiot is right! The one time!"
Crater? Yes! A kilometers-wide section of Tokyo was simply gone. In its place was a perfect half-sphere carved out of the ground, a tremendous, smooth-walled crater, perfectly empty except for the objects thrown in by air rushing to fill the sudden vacuum and…
Godzilla stood in the very center, the exhausted Gathra's flames billowing high around him then slowly fading away. The Monster King's eyes opened slowly; he didn't quite understand why he had survived, but he wasn't going to waste time wondering about it. For descending from the very point where the singularity had been before it was (somehow) made to vanish, was the Gaijin's final weapon.
A vaguely humanoid figure coated in rough, bony armor touched down lightly in front of him. Though the beast had no discernable head, four evil-looking dark-green eyes gazed out of the black confusion of armor on its broad chest. It was built something like a football player from Hell, but as if to mock its blocky limbs, two slender, sinuous tails gently wound behind it.
Emerging from the depths of absolute destruction, the perfectly lifeless void: Monster Zero!
Godzilla was unimpressed. He strode forward and threw a mighty punch… but Zero easily ducked it and stuck him in the ribs. Another ponderous swing met only air as Monster Zero kicked him in the throat. Keeping up his attack, the smaller Kaiju jumped and threw a turning kick across Godzilla's face, then continued his turn so that the tails could lash across him as well. Zero landed heavily on Godzilla's foot and gave him a beautiful uppercut that splattered the crater walls with light-green blood.
Before Zero could continue his streak, though, an atomic ray set him tumbling across the ground. Godzilla stomped forth to press his advantage--and a familiar gold-green-blue death ray struck the back of his head and knocked him staggering. Space Godzilla was advancing down the crater wall behind him as Monster Zero regained his feet.
Godzilla looked back and forth between them and sagged, arms falling to his sides.
"So it looks like you've accepted it, huh, luv?" Mr. Doesn't Exist walked up and sat alongside Chiyo. "It's not so bad, is it?"
"No…" her voice was so soft that anybody who existed wouldn't have been able to hear it. She was curled up on the not-ground, staring emptily into space with dry eyes but her cheeks streaked with old tears. Her body became more transparent as her being slowly waned, sinking gently into blank oblivion.
"You're lasting quite a while."
"How are you… talking to me…?" Chiyo tried to turn her head towards him, but just couldn't work up the strength. She giggled weakly. "You don't exist."
"I'm glad that you're okay with it. All the same, it's sad to see people go… and I rather liked you and your friends."
"My… friends?"
"Yes. Ms. Sakaki is dying as well."
"Ms. Sakaki, too?" Her form momentarily became more solid and she strained to rise. "N-no!"
"Changed your mind? What are you going to do, then?"
"What can I do?" Chiyo asked frantically. "I… I don't wanna let Ms. Sakaki die! But… but… there's nothing I can do!" She sobbed violently. "There's nothing! I'm nothing! What am I supposed to do when I'm not even an idea?"
"Well, now," Mr. Doesn't Exist sighed. "That's no way for a Goddess to talk."
"But there's no…" Chiyo sat up and turned sharply towards him. "Wait, what?"
"I thought he would be bigger," Masema commented. Beneath, SG was holding Godzilla's arms behind him while Monster Zero punched the crap out of him. Their victim managed to wrench his right arm free and slug Zero in the "face," but the smaller beast responded by grabbing his wrist and, with a flatly indescribable sound, driving a knee up through his elbow and breaking his arm. "All the same, that's a pretty impressive show."
"Oh, he will get bigger," Yukia assured him. She turned back towards the girls and walked slowly towards them. "This is only a sort of… larval stage. Once I have more life to feed him, you will see his true form."
"Go on, then." Masema might have been more impatient, but he liked the way things were turning out so far. "Let's see how deep this goes."
"Okay," Yukia held out her hand to Chiyo and Sakaki, then withdrew it. "No, it would be best to let them die together. Hmm…" she reached towards Xandra, who whimpered and backed away, then to Ayumu who didn't respond, then to Yomi, who went "Psst!"
"Hmm?"
"Psst! Psst!" Yomi jerked her head back, hissing, "C'mere!"
Yukia moved closer and knelt next to her. "What is it?"
"Look! It's Megalon!" Yomi screamed, pointing over her shoulder.
"What?" Yukia cried, whirling.
Yomi surged up behind her and wrapped her arm around Yukia's throat, dragging the vampiric woman up against her. "Gotcha! What do you have to say now, you horrible…?"
"Hrrghrh!" was Yukia's witty retort.
"Hey, Captain Nazi!" Yomi called out. "Let us go or I'll… choke her to death!" She didn't know if she was actually capable of doing so, of course, but this was the best plan that she could think of. As long as he needed the Forbidden Artist alive…
Masema drew his sidearm and leveled it on them, unhesitant. "Sorry, but I already have my monster. Even in his larval form, he's more powerful than any creature I've ever seen, so I don't really need that woman any more."
"Hhhk?" Yukia waved her arms.
"Yes, we'll be able to hit Monster Zero with the control device we were making for Godzilla. You've really become a fifth wheel, and I'm going to shoot you now."
"No!" Ayumu threw herself between them, spreading her arms. "I won't let you shoot Yomi!"
"Uh… Ayumu?" Yomi blinked. "You're, um, shielding my hostage."
"Huh? Oh. Hehe…" she shuffled away. "Sorry 'bout that."
"It's just a shame you won't live to see this world taken by…" Masema grinned and his finger tightened on the trigger--then a trio of silvery lightning bolts leapt from the thin air and blew him off of his feet. Yukia's astral "pet" had interceded, apparently. He landed lifelessly a few meters away, gun clattering across the deck.
"Buh…?" Yomi stared in shock. Three more bolts cracked down around them and she fell back, knocking her head on the deck. The pain was far from her mind, though; she'd felt them before. Long, long ago, she'd had a close call with those exact bolts. Before she could pursue the matter any further, the mostly-invisible fiend's head slid harmlessly through Yukia's body and closed its awful teeth about her.
Meanwhile, Godzilla was just getting his legs back. Gathra had rested up and the dark blue flames rose around him once more, his faltering strength was buoyed and Monster Zero was tail-whipped into the ground. Space Godzilla tried to hold his own against the one-handed beatdown he received, but he was no match for the combined might of the Big G and the Little G.
Earth's protectors were finally working wholly in concert. As Monster Zero rose, Godzilla turned on him, drew a deep breath and unleashed a ravening, cherry-red beam surrounded by a helix of madly VOIPing astral blades that simply tore through him, crisscrossing his black armor with oozing wounds and loosing a torrent of stringy blood from a hole in his torso.
Yukia walked over to her erstwhile commander and nudged him with a foot. "I didn't really want to do that," she mused. "But he had it coming. Still… he had one thing right. This world will be taken."
"By what?" Ayumu asked.
"By destruction, fire and then emptiness…" Yukia spread her arms, and it was just possible to imagine the astral monster breaking apart around her and swirling through the deck as through a drain, descending towards the flesh-and-blood form. "It will be taken by the Sun-Eater… the invincible Space Demon…"
The armored shell about Monster Zero's torso started to crack apart along the lines Godzilla's attack had cut, a draconian snout pressing free and carrying the center two eyes up on the top of a long, swaying neck. The armor of his legs splintered, freeing powerful muscles to burst free and his knees to snap backwards into their proper joint. Great, hooked talons ripped from his hands and batlike wings unfolded from his wrists, as dark and coated with slime as the rest of him. Trailing ichor, the last chunks of armor fell away as two more heads rose on either side of the first. Godzilla found himself backing away from a creature that towered over him, a repulsive behemoth that looked like it could crush the world in its talons… and would.
Yukia laughed exultantly. "King Ghidora!"
"I thought that guy looked familiar…" Ayumu muttered under her breath.
