Chapter Four: Decisive Strikes
The massive blue dragon circled around Gabara with powerful strokes of his wings, roaring a challenge to his opponent watching him on the ground. Gabara answered back with his distinctive caterwaul, daring Arashi to come back down on the ground.
Arashi was not to be goaded so easily. He opened his mouth, unleashing a salvo of electric blue bolts. The first struck Gabara, knocking him back, but the others passed right through the monster to tear up large chunks of rock as they struck the ground. Undeterred, Arashi fired another salvo, only to have the bolts pass through Gabara again with the same results.
Arashi stopped his attack but continued to circle Gabara, studying his opponent intently. The great dragon's intelligence was not as primitive as his saurian likeness would lead one to believe, thanks largely to Chen's programming. He could still feel a powerful urge in the back of his mind to destroy, but Arashi had already figured out that physical attacks were not working. There had to be another way to kill his opponent.
And that was when he felt it, an odd vibration in the air that did not seem to belong. He narrowed his red eyes and searched for the source of this odd disturbance. Now that he could feel it, Arashi also noticed that Gabara seemed to be giving off the same aura. The dragon's intelligence quickly put the two together and flew away from Gabara in the direction of the strange vibrations with a defiant screech.
He didn't have to go far before he found his target, a small truck parked out in the middle of nowhere. Arashi swooped down and snatched the truck in one massive taloned hand. Then, with a backpeddle of his wings, he slowed his flight and landed with a loud thump on the desert floor.
Being careful not to crush the truck, Arashi peered down at it, trying to learn exactly how this thing and his foe were related. A challenging warble from Gabara made Arashi crane his neck to look behind him. The dragon hissed in answer and watched as the ogre ran to cover the distance between the two, quite obviously eager to continue the fight.
In one quick movement, Arashi's talons abruptly closed over the truck and crushed it effortlessly. The resulting explosion from the vehicle was barely felt through his thick scales. With a near human-like gesture, Arashi shook his hand and flung the pieces of flaming wreckage into the desert.
Gabara's running stride was put to a sudden halt as the kaiju cried in pain and disappointment. He managed to take one last step before he fell to the ground and faded into nothingness.
Arashi felt a sense of animalistic pleasure at seeing Gabara fall and roared his delight. A part of his mind told him that such an emotion was wrong, but his other side, the side that he had inherited from King Ghidorah, was pleased with what he had done.
And the voice of Ghidorah was hard to ignore…
Sean Varnbel was not sure what had happened. The dragon had come from out of nowhere and grabbed his truck. His only hope had been for Gabara to close the distance and save him from Arashi. That, however, was not to be as his body was suddenly smashed into mush and incinerated all in the same instant.
But he did not die.
As his body was crushed, Varnbel felt a tremendous force rip his mind from his body.
The next thing he knew, his very essence was absorbed by Gabara in a last-ditch attempt to stay in the physical world.
However, without his body, Varnbel could not help out his monster and, now combined into one, they faded into the nether.
Within the endless dark, Varnbel waited with Gabara. He was not worried. The Demions had his schematics, with luck they would build another helmet to summon Gabara again.
Then they could have revenge.
The fog that surrounded Monster Island was not a natural phenomenon, it was in fact a barrier that had been generated by hidden Demion saucers to keep Godzilla and the other monsters on the island, and to keep the outside world out.
Any kaiju attempting to come to the rescue of the Humans had been transported back thanks to the Xian capture technology. Any force attempting entry was blasted by Demion lasers. However, the need for the mist was at an end. It was time to let Godzilla loose upon the world.
Judging by the number of times the King of Monsters had tried to leave the island recently, he was eager to wreak havoc once more.
His enemy defeated, and with no distractions to get in the way, Arashi listened to the darker part of himself. It was a powerful desire to destroy, overriding the nobler intentions that Chen had tried to install. It was not a senseless desire either, it was directed at one target in particular.
It was aimed at the one thing that had beaten his forbearer many times.
Godzilla.
He could feel his father's old enemy moving towards the land known as Japan.
With a snarl of rage, Arashi spread his wings and took to the air once more, bound for Japan.
Skull Island.
A rocky grain of sand on the sea, surrounded in perpetual fog. There weren't many, even in this day and age of satellites and radar, who knew where the island existed. Many modern day maps still did not have the small island included on their surface.
During the 1930's, after Kong had first appeared in New York, many hopeful fortune seekers and paleontologists had sought out the island in the hopes of finding another like Kong or the dinosaurs rumored to exist there. Few ever found it, even fewer returned alive, and at that, all empty handed and vowing never to return.
After the appearance of Godzilla, the subsequent kaiju that would showed up afterward, and the formation of Monster Island, Skull Island would soon be all but forgotten. It was a fate somewhat befitting of an island that gave up its secrets grudgingly and with a high price of blood. Even the Kilaaks, for all their power, could not find Kong's kingdom in time for their invasion. The Demions had fared no better.
There was an air of mystery and mysticism that hung like an aura on the island, almost daring some other foolish being to step on its shores…
Megalon had spent the months subsequent to the destruction of Seatopia following every lead that his Demion masters gave him. They were searching for an egg that was supposed to contain incredible power; the power to burn the world. Because of the terrible power of the egg, Mothra had long ago hidden it to keep it out of dangerous hands.
Many a location had been theorized to contain the egg and Megalon had searched them all with no luck. The last location had been Skull Island and there the Demions had been no help in providing a location. It was only through Megalon's connection with the Earth that he was able to discover the small island.
He emerged from one of his underground tunnels and onto the rocky shores of King Kong's home eagerly. This was the last place where the egg could possibly be. Once he found it, the Demions would fulfill his wishes.
Megalon walked near the coastline, looking for the rocky outcropping that was supposed to contain his goal. A distant howl let Megalon know that King Kong was awake and a second let the beetle kaiju know that Kong was aware of his intrusion.
With a squeal, he quickened his pace, not eager to fight someone as tenacious and unrelenting as Kong, not when he was so close to fulfilling his long task. And that's when he spotted it, a large rock outcropping that matched the image the Demions had sent to his brain. Age had weathered it slightly, but otherwise it matched perfectly.
The only problem was that it wasn't on the actual island, but a small atoll on the fringes of the deep sea.
Megalon leaped into the salty water with an eager sprint. The water did not look deep enough to require flying over. Another howl from Kong, louder this time, also served to remind Megalon that time was of the essence.
He had almost reached the shore of the atoll when something grabbed his leg in a powerful grip from under the water. Megalon squealed in surprise and tried to find some purchase on land by jamming one of his dagger-like hands into the rocky ground. It did little to help, whatever had a hold on him was determined to send him to a watery grave. Megalon's stop-gap maneuver forced his unknown attacker to grip his other leg with another powerful grasp and pull.
As desperately as Megalon tried to remain on land, he did not have the right appendages to grab a hold of something. With an eruption of dirt and rock, Megalon's claws came free from the ground and the kaiju was pulled under.
Being underwater was not foreign to Megalon, having served Seatopia for ages, but it was not his preferred environment to battle in either. As the water enveloped him, Megalon finally got a good look at his foe, it was the giant red crustacean, Ebirah.
Ebirah gave a triumphant shriek as he applied more pressure with his powerful claws, threatening to clip Megalon's feet right off. Twisting his body towards his foe, Megalon slashed out at the joint that connected Ebirah's claws to the rest of his body. Megalon's spade-like hands, sharp enough to cut through solid rock, easily sliced through Ebirah's thick shell.
The giant crustacean cried out in pain and let go of Megalon's other foot before retreating out of melee range. Seizing the opportunity, Megalon burst out of the water and into the air. Ebirah followed moments later with a shrill cry and a boulder clasped in his remaining claw.
With uncanny aim, Ebirah hurled the boulder at Megalon. The rocky projectile would have made contact, but Megalon blasted the rock into pieces by firing a bolt from his lightning horn. Then, before Ebirah could sink back under the water, the kaiju in the air fired his napalm bombs.
The red spheres burst into flame as they struck Ebriah's body. Too hot to be fully doused by the splashing water, Ebirah's shell started to warp from the intense heat. With a screech of anguish, the water-dwelling monster dove back under the waves to try and escape from the pain that been inflicted on him.
Megalon uttered a delighted screech and put both of his hands together to finish off his opponent once and for all. With his front appendages whirling like a drill, the gigantic beetle dove back into the drink. The water gave Megalon only token resistance as he sped through it like a torpedo.
Ebirah was not fast enough to get away from Megalon's diving attack. The drill bit tore through the crustacean's shell as if it were paper, breaking the kaiju in two. Ebirah's upper half, too much in shock to even feel the pain, struggled pitifully to drag itself across the seafloor with it's one good claw, still trying to get away. However, that sad scene did not last long as the life quickly left Ebirah's body.
Megalon rubbed his dagger-like hands together in victory, as if he was sharpening two knives, before emerging from the water again. He stepped back onto the atoll to claim his prize, forming his drill once again to burrow through the rock outcropping. He didn't have to dig far before the entire thing fell apart in pieces, revealing a gigantic black egg splotched with brown spots.
A nasty bellow announced Kong's presence on the shoreline of Skull Island. The enormous ape beat his chest in a loud thumping noise to convey his dominance before stepping into the waters of the ocean and making his way towards this intruder to his kingdom.
Megalon stood his ground, protectively putting himself between the egg and Kong. With a squeal to match Kong's challenging roar, Megalon fired off some shots from his lightning horn to try and discourage Kong from advancing. The bolts sizzled through the water, sending up great fountains of water as Megalon tracked his shots towards the giant ape. A few bolts struck home, sending Kong reeling backwards. In the water, Kong did not have the agility he did on land and was unable to dodge in time.
An ominous buzzing announced yet another participant in the fight on Skull Island; a swarm of Kamacuras. The cloud of monstrous insects split without apparent signal, half of them veering towards the egg and the other half taking up the fight with Kong.
The portion of the swarm that veered towards the egg worked together to lift the giant object into the sky and carry it off. Through the telepathic link the Demions had established with him, Megalon knew that these other insects were here to help. He watched the other Kamacuras fight a losing battle with Kong for a moment before turning and taking to the air.
The egg would need to be protected and Megalon knew exactly where it was going.
