A/N: Thanks for waiting patiently for this next chapter. After a bit of debating, I decided to set this chapter at Monarch Outpost 98 (a.k.a. the Boneyard) during Sekhmet's attack. This will introduce some of the resurrected Titans – many of which are ones from the Toho Godzilla movies. Call it a short interlude.
Once again, I don't own Godzilla.
Chapter Two: Ashkelon
MONARCH OUTPOST 98 – BENEATH ASHKELON, ISRAEL
By the time of Sekhmet's attack – 6:00P.M. local time – all the Monarch agents at Outpost 98 underneath Ashkelon, Israel had heard of the chaos erupting around the globe, and the destruction of around one-fifth of Monarch's Outposts due to the unleashed Titans. The first they had heard of the attack was at around 1:00A.M., when fifteen simultaneous distress calls came in from Outposts around the globe, reporting the Titan attacks.
"We have to send help," Agent Parker, one of the newest recruits at the Outpost, had insisted. He gestured to the map of the world, which showed red circles, each with a white '!' at its center, over each of the Outposts that was under attack, "These Titans have to be contained – who knows what the hell they're gonna do to the world if we don't?!"
"We can't spare many forces," Agent Stratsky, the leader of Outpost 98, had countered. "We'll send what we can, as I'm sure any other Outposts that are able will, but with this shit going down out there, our priority has to be defending the Boneyard. If the Titans have gone rogue…I fear Sekhmet may come after us. Increase security around the remains of the most dangerous Titans – Anguirus, Baragon, especially…him."
Everyone slightly gasped at the mention of the final Titan. He was believed by Monarch to be one of the three most dangerous Titans to have ever existed, behind Monster Zero and Abaddon, but had died long ago. According to ancient cave paintings near the original site of the Titan's skeleton in Kazakhstan, he had been an ancient terror to civilizations around the world before being defeated by an alliance of Godzilla, Methuselah, Mokele-Mbembe, and Typhon. The Titan's ancient name in the drawing had been so weathered by time that it was indecipherable, but Monarch agents had taken to calling him The Destroyer.
The Destroyer was almost 400 feet tall, about as tall as Godzilla, but has a wingspan of around 700 feet, making him far larger than Godzilla or any of his other challengers in the ancient Titan battle where he was defeated. As depicted in the cave paintings, The Destroyer had finally been overcome by Godzilla's atomic breath, Methuselah's sheer strength, Mokele-Mbembe's energy blast from his trunk, and Typhon's acid. When Monarch found The Destroyer's remains in 2004, they immediately noticed that he had an exoskeleton as opposed to an endoskeleton, as observed in all previously discovered Titans. His head had been severed from the rest of his body, and his neck had been completely disintegrated, leading them to believe that Methuselah and Typhon had restrained The Destroyer while Godzilla and Mokele-Mbembe decapitated him with their respective attacks.
It was eventually decided that four Ospreys would be sent from Outpost 98 to aid in recapturing Scylla. Some agents, like Parker, wanted to spread their aid amongst several Titans, but Stratsky countered that sending a quartet of Ospreys against four Titans, one against each creature, would be a suicide mission. Sending four Ospreys against one Titan yielded better odds for survival…marginally better, but still better.
Unfortunately, at about midday, the agents lost Sekhmet's trail in a large sandstorm developing over the north end of the Arabian Peninsula. The storm looked as though it would continue east, but about two hours later it suddenly turned north, heading straight for the Outpost. "Sir," Agent Marrell said, "the storm's changed its course. It's…coming for us."
"What the hell?" Agent Stratsky walked over to the map Marrell was observing. "How is that happening? No natural storm can swing a turn that fast."
"What if that storm is Sekhmet?" Agent Marrell suggested. She brought up a radar map from the previous day, showing King Ghidorah's hurricane tearing through the Caribbean. "Monarch thought this was a tropical storm at first and that they lost Monster Zero in it, but then they found out Monster Zero was creating it. So who's to say that Sekhmet doesn't have some mental powers over sand that we just don't know about yet, and that she created this sandstorm to mask her progress?"
"That is quite possible, Agent," Stratsky said, "which leads me to wonder what other powers Sekhmet has that haven't been documented, so we don't know of."
"Well, we're going to find out soon one way or the other," Agent Turner said. "The sandstorm itself will reach here in about four hours' time. After that, wherever Sekhmet is in there, it won't be long before she gets to us."
Suddenly, the conversation was interrupted by the rapid beeping of an incoming call. Stratsky pressed the button on the main control panel in the command room, covering the wall with an image of the inside of an Osprey. "Boneyard, this is Osprey Three," the pilot visible on the screen said. "Only we and Osprey Two are left, but we've done it. With the help of other Monarch agents sent in, we managed to capture Titanus Scylla. We've got her in Chicago, heading back to the southwest from Boston. Our electro-cables seemed to work best against her – tripped up the bitch and fried her too." Everyone in the room cheered, and the pilot continued, "What should we do with her now?"
"Hold on," Stratsky said, "Let me think for a minute. Is she secure for the moment?"
"Yes."
"Great."
KING GHIDORAH - THE SKIES ABOVE WAHINGTON, D.C.
A few minutes prior, King Ghidorah had sensed that one of his subjects, Scylla, was in distress. She had sent out a cry that to humans and any other witless oafs wandering the planet would not sound unique, but to the ears of a Titan, it was an S.O.S. Scylla's in trouble, Ni thought. What should we do?
Ichi gazed at the eyewall of the massive hurricane. Since he had devoured Mosura and Gojira in Boston, the storm had nearly doubled in strength, with sustained winds topping 300 miles an hour. Green lightning was constantly illuminating the sky in one location or another. If Ghidorah had ever been to Europe, the city would have reminded him of Venice, as all the streets had transformed into canals washing away detritus of buildings and even occasional human remains. The land surrounding the Potomac River had been transformed into a veritable swamp when it ferociously overflowed its banks, washing away all nearby vegetation. Less than an hour before, the Arlington Memorial Bridge had been struck in the exact center by a massive lightning bolt, causing about a quarter of it to fall less than a yard into the rapidly rising Potomac. Since then, small chunks of it had been regularly broken off due to the strength of the rushing water. The eye of the hurricane, where Ghidorah was, had become a veritable tornado, devouring most of Pennsylvania Avenue and the surrounding area.
We will not go help her ourselves, Ichi decided. Quetzalcoatl can reach her quickly, though. We shall send her.
Ghidorah sent out another roar, that was meaningless to most of the planet's population, but to Quetzalcoatl it said, Find Scylla. She is in danger and needs help.
Quetzalcoatl sent out an affirmative reply and headed for Arizona.
PHOENIX, ARIZONA
Meanwhile, in Phoenix, the Monarch agents who had united to take down Scylla warily approached the Titan's body, which was regularly convulsing as electricity from the cables tying its legs together pulsed through it. "Everyone, stay on guard," Agent Parth, the leader, said. "She's down but not out. Don't get too close or she'll freeze you with the liquid nitrogen she emits." Everyone else nodded and approached Scylla.
The four total Ospreys present hovered around the Titan and lowered hooks from their back ends to grab the four corners of the gigantic net that Scylla had toppled onto. "Once we have her in the net, where'll she be taken?" Agent Taylor asked.
"We're waiting for orders from Agent Stratsky. Once she gets back to us, we'll know what to do."
The Ospreys latched onto the net. It was specifically designed for hauling Titans, and each "rope" in the ten was made of ten two-inch-thick steel cables woven together. Once they attached to the net, the Ospreys hovered in the air, waiting to learn what to do next.
In the cockpit of Osprey Three, Agent Berran saw Agent Stratsky turn to give instructions on the screen in the Osprey's dashboard. "Osprey Three," Stratsky began, "Since electricity seems to be Titanus Scylla's only weakness, I want you to use the Ospreys to haul her out into the Sonoran Desert, where there's no one around to get hurt if she escapes. Keep her tied up with the cables until her containment unit at Outpost 55 is rebuilt to hold her again."
"Yes, sir," Berran said. "I'll tell everyone that-"
Suddenly, a screech resonated from the sky, and the low-lying mixture of clouds and smoke began glowing orange. "What the hell is that?" Taylor asked, pointing at it.
A deafening thunderclap issued from the heavens, followed by a shape tearing through the clouds like a knife through Jell-O. Quetzalcoatl.
"Is that Rodan?" Parth asked. "Last I heard, he was up in Canada wolfing down its entire caribou population."
"No, no," Taylor said, "he's not the right color. This guy's golden – Rodan isn't."
Quetzalcoatl shrieked and swooped overhead, his massive slipstream knocking over two of the high-rises bordering the clearing – if the site of several former buildings that had been leveled by a battle could be called a "clearing" – causing them to fall towards one of the Ospreys. It swerved to the side, but not quickly enough, and it was crushed under the building. As Rodan wheeled in the sky, the Osprey fell towards Scylla and crashed into her. Its exploded, not harming Scylla. The left propellor, still spinning as the aircraft plummeted, clashed against Scylla's near-indestructible carapace. The propellor broke off and whistled through the air, slicing through Osprey Three from the Boneyard. The rear half crashed onto Scylla's net, to which it was still attached, while the front half might have remained airborne if not for the explosion that ensued after the Osprey was bisected. The front half fell on Scylla and one of its still-spinning propellors chopped through the cables tying her legs together.
Scylla's eyes, which had been closed since she was trapped in the cables, shot open and she stood up. The two remaining Ospreys flew upward to try to make the net taut and trip Scylla, but they forgot about Quetzalcoatl. He swooped from the sky with a deafening screech and flew directly over the Ospreys, then clapped his massive wings together beneath him. The Ospreys couldn't evade the attack quickly enough, and were immediately crushed. The explosion didn't harm Quetzalcoatl, as his thick hide protected him, and pieces of the former aircraft fell to the ground. Many of them fell onto Scylla, sliding harmlessly off her back.
"What do we do, sir?" Agent Taylor asked Parth. "What do we do?"
"I – fall back!" he said as Quetzalcoatl swooped back for another pass and Scylla rose to her full height, ready to go on another rampage. The spider-like Titan shrieked and drove a giant, pointed leg into the ground, causing a miniature earthquake that knocked over the fleeing Monarch agents. Quetzalcoatl flew down and squawked before slapping his wings together once more right above the fallen agents. The resulting massive shockwave crushed the agents instantaneously, flattening their bodies to just over two inches thick.
The Titans roared in triumph in the center of the ruined city. Scylla departed to the southwest once more while Quetzalcoatl lifted off into the air, in search of another place to lay waste to.
MONARCH OUTPOST 98 - BENEATH ASHKELON, ISRAEL
The last Agent Stratsky saw of Chicago was a view through the windshield of Osprey Two as it was crushed between Quetzalcoatl's maassive wings, and its feed cut out. "Osprey Two!" he yelled. "Osprey Two, do you copy? Do you copy?!" After several seconds of silence, Stratsky cursed, "Shit. It looks like the Ospreys we sent to Chicago are both down. Scylla, we have to assume, is now roaming free once more, because no one can get control of these GODDAMN TITANS!"
"What do we do, sir?" Agent Marrell asked.
"We hold down the Boneyard. If we can deter Sekhmet, then we'll start worrying about what's going down in the rest of the world. But we could have the best damn plan the world's ever seen, and it won't help anyone if we're dead too."
The other Agents nodded in agreement. Marrell reported, "The storm is still heading straight for us."
"As expected. We can't let Sekhmet get to the Titan remains we have here. She isn't inherently evil, so refrain from killing her if at all possible, but if there's no alternative, you do it."
That evening, the sandstorm reached the Boneyard with a loud noise audible even through the ten-foot-thick metal that formed the roof of the Outpost. The Agents were all waiting with their machine guns trained on the Outpost's main entrance. Sekhmet, while still a Titan by all means, was one of the smaller ones, and might be susceptible to ordinary weapons.
But Sekhmet didn't attack in the expected way.
The Agents had anticipated her to break in through the hatch that led to the surface and was connected to a ramp for vehicles to drive into the Outpost. So all of the Agents were guarding the hatch. Suddenly, the roof trembled and it looked as though dust was raining from the ceiling. Only it wasn't dust, unless, by chance, the roof was made of dust. Wherever the substance was falling, the roof itself appeared to be disintegrating. Agent Turner walked over to it. She picked up a handful of the substance and reported, "It's...sand."
"How the hell is sand sifting through the ceiling?" Agent Stratsky asked. "It's ten feet of steel."
"Uh, sir...," Agent Marrell pointed up, "I think the roof is sand."
Everyone looked up and saw that the roof was rapidly eroding into mounds of sand that were accumulating on the floor. "Everyone, over there!" Stratsky yelled, pointing at the ceiling. "It looks like Sekhmet does have control over sand after all! She must be...turning the ceiling into sand!"
"She's gonna crush us all!" Agent Marrell said. "Everyone, get out!"
"We can't; that's probably exactly what Sekhmet wants," Agent Turner said. "She wants us to go out there and then she's gonna bite us or claw us to bits."
Suddenly, the roof entirely caved in, crushing everyone under tons and tons of sand. Everyone in the room was immediately killed.
Meanwhile, the few Agents who were in the lower levels observing the events in the room saw the camera feeds cut out as the security cameras were disintegrated into sand. "What just happened?!" one of the Agents asked. "Sekhmet didn't even get into the room so what happened there?"
"They said that the roof was turning into sand," another said, "so that's gotta be what happened to the cameras too. Sekhmet must be able to control sand, like we thought."
"Well, if that's the case, then we're screwed. Sekhmet's gonna turn every layer of this outpost into sand, crushing all of us one by one, until she gets to the lower levels where the fossils are. If we stay here, nobody's gonna know what happened here. I say we leave through the warp tunnel to Outpost 4 - if we can get out of here, the other Monarch Agents will know what's coming."
"Can't we just use our communications systems to reach them?"
"No. They cut out when Sekhmet turned the roof to sand. Some of the tech that we use to communicate with the other Outposts was in the roof, and now that's gone. Leaving is the only way."
"...Fine."
THE RUINS OF MONARCH OUTPOST 98 - BENEATH ASHKELON, ISRAEL
Just under an hour later, Sekhmet created a tunnel to the surface for her and the resurrected Titans to escape through. She crawled out first, followed by the Destroyer, Anguirus, Baragon, Margygr, Megalon, Kumonga, Titanosaurus, and Zilla. The Titans all reached the surface and convened. Sekhmet gave a mighty roar that reached Ghidorah's ears thousands of miles away. Mission accomplished. The Boneyard had been destroyed and the Titans are free.
Excellent, Ichi replied a few seconds later. Now come to me. I wish to introduce myself to these Titans. Many of them know not who I am.
Suddenly, a third voice intruded on the conversation, like someone picking up the extension of a phone line, I know who you are. And I don't bow to you.
Sekhmet and the other Titans looked up at the Destroyer, and realized that he was the new voice. WHAT?! Ichi's voice exploded across Sekhmet's mind like the world's worst migraine. YOU DARE OPPOSE ME, YOU CRETIN?!
I was here long before you, hydra, the Destroyer said, and I will be here long after you. I will not bow to you, and...I trust that you will not either. He turned to Sekhmet and the other resurrected Titans, a threatening tone snaking into his voice.
Sekhmet realized that, while she was still loyal to Ghidorah, the Destroyer was the clear and present danger. She knew of his might, and that he could kill all of them before even one of them could muster a counterattack. Her best chance at immediate survival seemed to be going along with the Destroyer and his treachery for now. Besides, if she pretended to be loyal, she could serve as an "inside man" for Ghidorah. So she mentally said, Of course, Destroyer.
The other Titans gave similar sentiments.
YOU WILL ALL BE PUNISHED FOR THIS! Ichi swore. YOUR BLOOD WILL BATHE THE SURFACE OF THIS ENTIRE PLANET!
Suddenly, Zilla rushed at the Destroyer, transmitting, You're not the boss of me!
Zilla didn't even cover half the distance between them before the Destroyer unleashed his Horn Katana, slicing through and partially eviscerating Zilla. He fell over, his head splatting into a heap of his own innards as his tongue lolled out. A lesson for you all, the Destroyer transmitted, pointing to Zilla's corpse. If you oppose me, you will end up like this tune-eating piece of shit. I don't even know why you bothered freeing him, Sekhmet. He's useless.
Ichi roared back into the conversation, YOU WILL FACE MY VENGEANCE FOR THIS!
This is my planet, not yours, the Destroyer said, disturbingly calm when compared to Ichi's ranting. And if I have to kill you to take it back, then so be it.
A/N: My insincere apologies to the infinitesimal population of Zilla fans I undoubtedly offended in this chapter. The rest of us agree with the Destroyer about what he really is.
Sorry this chapter took so long to write. I was working on a few other fics alongside it. The chapter was originally meant to be a lot more concise, but I actually took out a lot to even get it down to this. One scene I cut that I might put back in later showed Ghidorah releasing a gigantic EMP to take out the world's satellites from the perspective of an astronaut on the ISS. Maybe that'll find its way into a later installment...
Stay tuned for the next chapter!