Chapter Two: Family Matters

Phoenix, Arizona. One Month Later.

Saeko sighed as tore off a piece of the restaurant's complimentary bread and munched on it. He was late! Her boyfriend was never known to be punctual, what with his duties and all, but it was a half hour over the time they had agreed to meet. If he ended up not showing, she was definitely going to give him hell about it later. She might even teach him a few martial arts moves the hard way.

Today marked the one year anniversary since they had first started dating. It was also one of the few times that Saeko had actually dressed up. She was wearing a little black dress that quite effectively showed off her stunning figure. As a rule, Saeko generally didn't like to flaunt her looks, but there were times when it was good to drop a few jaws.

She was waiting in one of the nicer restaurants in Phoenix, a classy sit-down spot that was perhaps one step away from becoming a shirt and tie place. Saeko didn't eat here often, but the food was good, even if the prices were a little more than they deserved to be. It had a nice atmosphere with someone playing classical piano in the middle of the room. There were couples seated at various tables, speaking quietly to each other. On occasion, she would notice one or two look in her direction with sympathy, probably assuming she had been stood up, which she did her best to ignore.

"I hope I didn't keep you waiting long," a familiar voice said from behind her.

Saeko didn't turn to greet her boyfriend and watched as he sat down, her arms crossed. "Max, what kept you? I was about ready to drive down there and drag your sorry butt to the restaurant."

Max Adams smiled that incorrigible smile of his. Dressed in his formal best, he certainly cut quite the dashing figure. At twenty-four Max was five years older than Saeko, but everyone agreed that Saeko was more of an adult than he was. Considering Saeko's wild ways, that was saying quite a bit. The age difference might have worried some, but Max had learned early on that Saeko was quite capable of fending off unwanted advances.

"I'm sorry, Saeko," he said in apology. "I truly am. You can use me for target practice later if you want, but I can assure you that I didn't forget our anniversary. Moguera's trials lasted longer than I expected. My father even dropped by as an observer."

Max's father was none other than the famous astronaut, Glenn Adams. Glenn had been one of the primary people responsible for repulsing the Xian invasion in the sixties. During the invasion the Xians had killed the love of his life, Namikawa, and after the Xians had been sent packing, Glenn had fallen into a deep depression over Namikawa's death. About a year later he moved back to the states and later married Max's mother, Clare, before they got divorced when Max was ten. After the Kilaak invasion of 1999, when M-Watch was formed, Glenn had joined up and had taken charge of the space defense program.

That was nearly everything Saeko knew of the famous Glenn Adams. Max didn't speak that much about his father and the few times she had spoken with Glenn in person, it had been about her father's work. However it was clear that Max got his charm, as well as his tenacious streak, from his dad.

Saeko softened a bit, aware that Max didn't see his dad nearly as much as he should. In fact, he saw Glenn less than she saw her own father. While technical problems with Moguera might have had something to do with his being late, she was sure he took a little time to catch up with his dad before Glenn left elsewhere on business.

She smiled knowingly. "The trials took a little longer than you expected, eh? Everything working okay with Moguera?"

"It's those damn experimental ULT lasers they've put in Moguera's eyes," Max said with a frown. "Apparently it has something to do with a faulty heat sink ratio. I still think they should scrap the whole project. Don't get me wrong, I think the ultra low temperature lasers are the best innovation we've seen since masers, but I don't see why we can't just stick with mounting the things on conventional vehicles and get rid of the whole giant robot part of it."

No mention of his father, but then, Max didn't tend to talk about him… "Still lamenting about Moguera?" Saeko asked, content to stay on the current subject and not bring it up. Max would say something about Glenn if he felt it to be important and apparently he didn't. "A giant robot might be impractical, but I've heard that if it's successful it might be considered as the next Godzilla. Moguera would be seen as another monster to the other kaiju, and after it successfully drives off attacking kaiju, it will be as if it is claiming the US as its territory. The kaiju would stay away from the US because they would remember Moguera and would want to avoid fighting it."

"Maybe…" Max said, as he thought about it. "Maybe that would work for the bulk of the kaiju, but there are other monsters like Godzilla and King Kong who seem to thrive on fighting. The idea that there is a strong monster guarding our shores could make them start visiting us more frequently."

He shook his head ruefully. "I'll just leave it at that, though. I didn't come here to talk about work." He smiled as he took a small black box out of his jacket pocket and presented it to her. "Happy anniversary, Saeko."

Saeko took the small box curiously. Max knew her well enough to know that she didn't really go for the traditional gifts like jewelry, flowers, or chocolates. Usually he made his gifts suitably unique for her, so her interest was definitely piqued when she took the small jewelry box. Did Max intend to propose perhaps? If so, he was out of luck. She liked Max, a lot, but she definitely wasn't ready to take it to the next level.

She opened the box to find a small ivory pendant inside. The pendant was a round disk with a carving of King Ghidorah jutting from the center. The infamous Monster Zero was in front of a blazing sun. He had his wings spread and had one head facing right, another left, and the center one staring straight out with mouth open as if to attack. On the top of the carving there was an empty space where a hole had been cut. A silver chain had been strung through the hole so she could wear the pendant like a necklace.

She looked up at Max with a smile. "I love it."

Max grinned back, although his eyes danced as if he was hiding something. "I know how much you like kaiju, even if I don't care for them. It gets even better though. That's no ordinary ivory that the pendant has been cut out of. It came straight from the source, if you get my meaning."

Saeko's eye widened. "You don't mean…"

"Sure do," he confirmed for her. "After that bout in California, a large tooth was one of the items recovered. It wasn't as useful as the flesh samples, so it was locked away. I got your father to confirm that it was indeed from the real King Ghidorah before I convinced him to give me a small piece of it."

"I'm sure it was hell to get something like that approved from your superiors," Saeko said appreciatively as she admired the carving.

Max cleared his throat conspicuously. "I didn't exactly ask them for permission."

Saeko chuckled. "Somehow I thought that was the case."

"You know me so well," he agreed, before getting back to the subject at hand. "It was a lot tougher than I had expected too. It turns out King Ghidorah's tooth is harder to cut through than jade. We had to use an industrial laser in the lab to cut off a piece. I then gave it to a group of jewelers who specialized in jade jewelry. If I hadn't paid them to make it their top priority, I don't think they would have had it finished in time for our anniversary. Trust me Saeko, that sucker could probably take a bullet without so much as a scratch afterwards."

"You're a sweet man, you do know that, don't you?" she told him with genuine love as she reached down to try the talisman on. As her fingers brushed against the ivory of the pendant, she suddenly felt a chill strike her straight to the bone. Saeko pulled back her hand in shock, but it had struck her so fast that she almost wasn't sure if it had really happened.

Max, ever the observant one, noticed immediately. "What's wrong?"

Saeko reached down and experimentally touched the pendant again, but this time there was no chill. It felt just like a regular ivory pendant. "Nothing," she said. She didn't want Max to think there was anything wrong with his present, not after all the trouble he had gone through for it. Besides, there was no cold chill this time. The first time must have been her imagination. "A couple of those edges are sharper than I expected is all."

She brought the chain up and fastened it behind her neck. Putting the incident behind her, Saeko gestured towards the pendant resting just above her chest. "Well? How does it look."

"Beautiful, just like the owner," Max said smiling, apparently accepting the reason she had given him earlier about drawing back her hand.

"It's going to make that tie I got you look really cheap by comparison," Saeko said slyly.

"Nice try, but I can tell when you're joking."

Saeko laughed, already forgetting the pendant incident, as well as Max's tardiness, as she brought out her gift...

M-Watch Kaiju Defender Lab.

Hikaru looked over his creation with no small amount of pride. It had been a grueling month of hard research to reach this point, but as he looked over the new life he and his team would be bringing into the world, he knew it would all be worth it.

One of the missile silos of the converted base had been modified to serve as an artificial womb of sorts. The inside of the converted missile silo was sheathed in sterilized glass and filled with a synthetic embryonic fluid. Large, pressure treated windows looked into the 'womb' that contained his kaiju. Currently, his creation was floating and curled up in the fetal position, in deep sleep. It would be some time before Hikaru and his team saw fit to wake him up.

Right now it was little more than a blue lizard-like fetus, barely formed, but it was growing at a phenomenal rate. The fetus was already as large as a normal man and twice as thick. Hikaru could pick out the beginnings of features that would later develop into the wings, or the tail, or the spines along it's back. Hikaru had a good idea of what his new kaiju would look like fully formed as he had been the one primarily responsible for inputting all of the genetic data. If all continued as estimated, his new kaiju would be fully grown in another month.

It was strange, but for some reason he had taken a personal hand in every aspect having to do with this new monster. Unlike with the Dorat-Ghidorah, where he had been content to let his team do a lot of the grunt work, Hikaru found he was compelled to do most of the work by himself. He didn't quite understand it, but he felt a definite attraction to this new kaiju. He was even considering a few names for his creation, although ultimately it would be up to his M-Watch superiors to give the official name.

It was late in the night, almost morning. The lab abandoned. Hikaru had the run of the place and even though he had been up for nearly twenty-four hours, he didn't feel tired. Instead he was perched in front of a computer typing in data for the final phase of his new kaiju's development before it would be sent to fight. Occasionally he would steal a glance at his growing kaiju through the window before returning to his work.

He felt terribly guilty about Saeko. Aside from the times when she would invite herself into his lab and talk with him, he almost didn't see her anymore. He knew she had gone out on a date with Max Adams for their anniversary tonight. Given the time, she was probably back by now, but Hikaru could hardly enforce Saeko's curfew if she decided to stay out late.

The irony that he was spending more time with his new monster than with his daughter did not escape Hikaru. Nor did the idea that he was starting to consider this growing kaiju to be something like family to him. After all, why shouldn't he think that way? He was putting his blood, sweat, and tears into this. He was giving the project his all. If it hadn't been for him, this new life would never have happened. The kaiju might be related to King Ghidorah by genetics, but it was Hikaru's love for it - yes it was love - that truly made him it's father.

As he came to that realization, his pang of guilt for not spending time with Saeko deepened and he suddenly felt very weary as his lack of proper sleep seemed to catch up with him. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "I think that's all for tonight," he mumbled as he saved the data and closed the files.

It would be a nice surprise for Saeko to actually see him at breakfast. Yes, perhaps he might even take a day off to spend with her. Even as he considered it, Hikaru knew it would never happen. Breakfast he could do, but taking the whole day off? M-Watch would never allow that.

They needed this new kaiju defender as soon as possible. There was simply no telling when the next attack would come. It had been pretty quiet since the attacks of a month ago, but Hikaru had picked up on some gossip that said they were starting to have problems in Africa. Apparently there was a giant insect problem deep in the continent's heart that the UN forces were having trouble getting under control.

No, they wouldn't let him take a day off, not until he finished his work. Once that was done, however, he promised himself that he would take a family vacation to make it up to Saeko, even if he had to quit M-Watch to do so.

Hikaru stood and stretched muscles that hadn't budged for hours with a weary groan. If he made it back to their quarters now, he would have just enough time to get a decent amount of sleep before breakfast…

He started to head for the exit before a flash of light behind him stopped him in his tracks. Hikaru, unsure what to expect, turned to face the oddity and took a step back in surprise when he saw a small version of Mothra, which was ironically enough, still larger than any normal-sized moth. The large insect was hovering near chest level on Hikaru. It took Hikaru's tired mind a moment to recall that this was Fairy Mothra.

Fairy Mothra was a relatively new power associated with Mothra. It was unknown if the tiny creature was an extension of Mothra's power or had been created by the tiny women who were always seen using Fairy Mothra as transportation.

Not surprisingly, those same two women were riding Fairy Mothra now. They were Asian in appearance and were identical in all ways. Their long black hair was done up in an intricate long braid and they both wore simple, yet elegant red dresses.

The entire group was glowing in a soft golden light.

"Sho… Shobijin!" He said in astonishment. Hikaru knew of Mothra and her priestesses of course, and he knew that they never showed up unless there was trouble. "Why are you here?"

His question was answered with another as the Shobijin spoke in unison. "Why are you in league with King Ghidorah?" They all said plaintively. "Why are you helping to spread his evil?"

Hikaru was momentarily at a loss as to what they could be talking about… but he soon realized it had to have been about that Dorat version he had created. "You're too late," he told them. "My Dorat clone was destroyed by the real thing, but it was never evil."

"No," they corrected him. "Mothra has sensed the evil of another who has the same aura of King Ghidorah. It is an evil that is growing."

Growing? They couldn't mean… Hikaru's eyes shifted to the kaiju embryo that was growing in the tank.

The Shobijin followed his vision and Fairy Mothra came in closer so that they could inspect the creature within. The looked at each other and nodded before facing Hikaru. "Your new creation carries with it the same evil as Ghidorah. You must destroy it now before it's too late."

For the second time since the Shobijin had arrived, Hikaru was taken aback. "You can't be serious!" Even as he spoke those words, he knew how foolish that sounded. Of course the priestesses were serious, anything that got them away from Infant Island was serious. He walked up next to the tank, anxious to justify himself. "Listen, I'll admit that I used Ghidorah's cells as a starting place, but they have been extensively modified. Besides, I find it doubtful to believe that just because Ghidorah is evil that my creation will be as well."

"There are exceptions to every rule," they told him sagely. "Ghidorah's evil is so strong that it taints everything it touches. The same blood that flows in Ghidorah flows in your kaiju as well. When he wakes up, he will become a destroyer of worlds like Ghidorah."

Hikaru held up a hand. "Wait a minute," he said as he sat down and quickly brought up the program he had been working on earlier. "Assume for a moment that I believe you… well we've been working on something for his final phase of development that could make Ghidorah's taint null and void. Once my kaiju is fully grown, we'll be attaching a device to his brain to train it. In addition to making him intelligent, the training will also hardwire commands into his very psyche so that he will have no choice but to obey commands. It's a more advanced version of what we did with the Dorat-Ghidorah. He won't have a chance to be evil because he'll be at our command."

The Shobijin shook their heads sadly. "It won't be enough. He will break free of the programming."

Hikaru could feel his anger start to rise at the implacable attitudes of the priestesses. "Hold on! I seem to recall several times in our past when Ghidorah was being mind controlled by alien invaders. How come he never broke free of those commands?"

"King Ghidorah only went along with their commands because they fed his desire to kill and destroy. Ghidorah would have turned on them if they tried to have him do anything different."

They bowed in apology. "We are sorry, but the kaiju must be destroyed before it can grow any more."

Hikaru sat, bewildered, as he tried to come up with a good argument. He suddenly found himself wondering how the tiny Shobijin were planning to destroy something easily five times their size.

He soon got his answer.

The priestesses started singing in unison as the golden glow around them intensified. It wasn't the Mothra song though, this was something completely different. For the life of him, he couldn't decipher the words. It wasn't Japanese and it sure wasn't English. It seemed to be from a language that was long dead. All Hikaru knew was that the song made him very uncomfortable when he heard it.

When he saw his creation start to glow the same golden color, he realized that the song was meant to destroy.

Without even thinking, he pushed himself out of his chair and placed himself in front of the priestesses. "Please!" he found himself begging. "Please! Don't destroy it. Isn't there something else you can do? This kaiju is special to me, I've put my soul into Arashi's creation! There must be some other way!"

The Shobijin stopped their song abruptly as they looked at each other before their gaze turned distant. Hikaru realized that they were likely contacting Mothra, or she was contacting them. In either case, when they looked at him again, they appeared very reluctant.

"Arashi?" they asked. "You have named him?"

Hikaru hesitated. He hadn't even realized that he had blurted out the name until the Shobijin had repeated it back to him. "I… I have. It's not official, but that's the name I've been calling him in my head." He felt embarrassed as he admitted the next: "I love him… I do. I've grown to love Arashi like I love my daughter. I know he can accomplish great things if given a chance. Please, I'll take all responsibility, but there must be something you can do other than destroying him."

"We can try to exorcise the evil of Ghidorah out of his system, but it won't be easy," they told him grimly. "He is not fully grown so the volume that we have to exorcise may be small enough that we can accomplish this without the need for Mothra to be here. Arashi was created with love, and not soullessly as we first thought, so that may work in our favor. Keep a prayer for Arashi as we attempt to exorcise Ghidorah's evil."

Hikaru nodded, unsure of what to say as he moved away from the tank. He was just thankful that there was a chance Arashi could be saved.

The priestesses started singing another song as their golden aura grew again. Likewise, Arashi's body glowed as it did last time. All Hikaru could do now was trust that the Shobijin would keep their word. It was a small fear, but it was borne out of a parent's protectiveness for his child.

The song lasted longer than Hikaru would have guessed, stretching almost into a good fifteen minutes. During that time, he found he could see what looked like a dark mist flowing out of Arashi and evaporating into nothingness.

When the song finally started to wind down, Fairy Mothra and the Shobijin all but collapsed on a nearby desk. Hikaru rushed over to them to make sure they were okay, but when he spoke, the first words out of his mouth were: "Did it work?"

The priestesses took a moment to answer as they appeared to catch their breath. Despite the fact that they were both winded, they still managed to speak in unison. "We managed to expel the majority of the evil, but we couldn't get all of it. There are some lingering traces of it left."

"Can you rest up and try again?"

"There is no time," they told him. "There have been many strange things happening lately and Mothra believes there is a sinister motive behind it. We need to return and assist her in discovering what this new threat is."

Hikaru felt a deep fear in the pit of his stomach as struggled to get out his next question. "Are you still planning to destroy Arashi?"

The pause before the Shobijin answered was almost deafening. "No. Enough of Ghidorah's evil has been expelled that your plans to control him should work now. We are trusting you to live up to your promise. Good or evil, Arashi will play a pivotal role in the near future."

"I won't disappoint you," he promised solemnly. "The last thing I want to do is unleash another horror like Ghidorah."

The Shobijin nodded but didn't say another word as Fairy Mothra lifted off from the desk and all three of them disappeared in a flash of light.

Once they were gone, Hikaru sighed as he walked back to the tank and put his hand on the glass. "You hear me?" he said to the inert form of Arashi. "I'm putting all of my faith into you. In a way, so is the whole world."

As it turned out, Hikaru didn't make it back to the quarters he and Saeko shared until well into the morning. After the visit by the Shobijin, he had been so worried about Arashi slipping into evil, that the only thing he could think of was perfecting the training program. Finally, when he could barely keep his eyes open any longer, he gave in and shambled towards the Chen family quarters and his little-used bed.

When he came in, he found that Saeko was already up and had made breakfast. Scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, orange juice. It was far from a traditional Japanese breakfast, but Saeko had picked up a lot of American habits since they had moved over here.

She smiled as she saw him enter. "The dead live again," she joked. "Can I interest you in some breakfast?"

He smiled tiredly. "I'm so sorry. I wanted to get back sooner but-" Hikaru cut himself off as he spied an ivory pendant of Ghidorah being worn by his daughter like a necklace. "Is that what I think it is?" he asked worriedly, his mind invariably recalling when he had given Max that shard of Ghidorah's tooth and more recently the Shobijin's assertion that Ghidorah's evil essence tainted every part of his body.

"You like it?" she asked, not picking up on his concern as she fingered the pendant. "I know you helped Max to make it. I think it turned out great."

"You need to take that off right now," he said with more force than he meant.

This, of course, had the opposite effect as Saeko clutched the pendant protectively. "What? Why?"

Hikaru sighed as he all but fell into a chair. "The Shobijin visited me in the lab last night with concerns about Arashi."

"Your kaiju?"

"Yes," Hikaru confirmed. "They told me that Ghidorah's evil infests every part of that space monster's body and will corrupt anything that comes into contact with it. I didn't fully believe it until I saw them exorcise Ghidorah's aura out of Arashi." He looked at his daughter. "Are you feeling okay, Saeko? Have you felt any different since you got that pendant?"

Saeko seemed to hesitate, but shook her head. "I feel fine. I… did feel a cold tingle when I first touched it, but that hasn't happened since."

Hikaru rubbed the stubble that had accumulated on his face over the night, as he furrowed his brow thoughtfully. "Curious. I never felt any such cold chill as I was handling the Ghidorah samples. In fact, aside from the jewelers, I've probably been the person who has been exposed the most to Ghidorah's samples and I don't feel any different. Did Max mention anything strange about the jewelers, perhaps?"

"Not a word."

"Something is not adding up and for the life of me, I can't figure out what," he said. "I know I must be missing something obvious."

"I think you're just taking the warning of the priestesses too seriously," Saeko suggested. "Ghidorah's evil would be a problem for Arashi, who is a living thing made from his cells, but the samples you got of Ghidorah are all dead. Maybe the evil just doesn't last after the part it inhabits dies?"

"You might be right," he said, too tired to give it anymore thought. He still had a feeling he was missing something vital, but Saeko's explanation seemed to fit. "It'll probably come to me after I rest up."

Saeko took a bite of her eggs, but didn't say anything else. Simply shrugging in answer.

Hikaru grunted as he lifted himself out of the chair and stumbled towards his bed, nodding at Saeko in a silent parting as he left the room. Yes, once Arashi was grown and in M-Watch's hands, he would take a vacation with Saeko. There was no telling how much time he had left with her…

Hikaru Chen was not the only one who regularly went without sleep. General Douglas Nassel of M-Watch was another who couldn't be bothered by the needs of the body as he committed himself fully to the cause.

After the Kilaak invasion, the UN had come to a decision that there needed to be a worldwide agency to police kaiju activity and protect the people from the evil kaiju that seemed to have a fixation for harassing the Earth. Monster Watch, called M-Watch for short, was formed soon afterwards. When word got around that a new agency had been formed to protect the world from monsters, nations all over the world had petitioned M-Watch to install facilities in their country.

Because it served such a vital purpose, M-Watch soon became the most well-funded agency working under the UN. M-Watch quickly became integrated all over the world with major offices in Tokyo, Moscow, and various other high profile countries. The M-Watch world headquarters were located in New York, next to the UN assembly.

It was scary sometimes to think of the power and resources that M-Watch had at its disposal. Moguera alone had the power to lay waste to entire armies, and Japan's Super-X was certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Occasionally that power got out of hand. The Russian division had been hard at work on a crazy project known as the Dimension Tide which was designed to fire a miniature black hole at the Earth from space and completely swallow a kaiju in the singularity. Once it was discovered what they were building, the other leaders of M-Watch had been quick to put a stop to it.

Many of the smaller nations under M-Watch's guard were experimenting with gas repellents similar to the kind that had worked so successfully on Monster Island before the Kilaaks had destroyed the facilities there.

Monster Island itself had been abandoned after the invasion. Even though a lot of the kaiju still congregated there, a few had left. Manda was presumed to be back with Mu and it was confirmed that Mothra had gone back to Infant Island.

There had been a definite shift in thinking after the Kilaak attack. When the monsters had attacked King Ghidorah and the Kilaaks on their own, it was finally realized that it would be far more beneficial to work with the good kaiju instead of trying to control them. So, for that reason, Monster Island was watched from satellite, and the occasional observation team that went to the island, but otherwise it was M-Watch policy to stay away.

That policy wasn't popular with everyone, but so far the majority far outweighed the minority.

And that made Nassel's current problems even more of a headache… Ever since it was confirmed that a Kamacuras swarm had killed Minya, a strange mist had formed around the island, preventing any observation from space or a manned team from finding the island. M-Watch was completely blind to anything that was going on at Monster Island, all they knew was that ever since Minya's death, not a single monster had left the island.

Not eager to violate their new hands-off policy, M-Watch command was content so far to sit back and see what happened.

Besides, they had more pressing problems elsewhere.

Africa was under siege by a veritable insect army. Not only had the Kamacuras swarms mysteriously been transported there, along with the spider Kumonga, but there was a new menace aiding them; giant dragonflies nearly five meters across. They were named Meganura after the ancient prehistoric insect of the primeval world because they shared many similarities with it.

When it was first noticed that this entomological horde was advancing out of the Congo, M-Watch had been quick to respond. They managed to successfully fight off the insects and keep them contained with conventional weapons. However, that quickly changed when a new factor was added.

Megaguirus.

When the giant Meganura queen showed up on the battlefield, the tide quickly shifted in favor of the insects. Not only was Megaguirus fast, her sonic vibrations shorted out every machine in the area, making fighting her a near impossibility.

The armies of M-Watch were fighting a losing battle as the insects claimed parts of Gabon, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, Uganda, Kenya, and the Central African Republic. If this continued, they would cut Africa in half.

Chemical attacks were being tried, but so far they were having little effect and M-Watch had no choice but to retreat. Moguera and the Super-X were currently not able to combat something like Megaguirus. To add to the misery, not a single good kaiju had so far showed up to help combat the insect swarm which was causing a lot of people to feel betrayed. Why were they not helping as they had in the past? Had M-Watch made a mistake with the hands-off policy?

In addition, M-Watch's failure so far to get the African situation under control was generating severe criticism from world leaders. The only saving grace was that no one had a better idea of what to do, short of nuking the continent.

One thing Nassel knew for sure was that they needed Professor Chen's new kaiju now more than ever. It was quite possibly the only hope they had left to rely on.