A/N: I own nothing. "Tea" is pronounced Tay-uh, not … tea.
Chapter 1
Chaos - The Best Laid Plans - Something DIfferent
Godzilla was trying his best to clean up his desk. He only worked in the office on Fridays, but somehow the desk always seemed to get filled up with a ridiculous amount of clutter. He was in a frantic race to find a pair of tickets, which were currently the most important thing in his life, before the clock struck 4, his leaving time.
Svetlana, his best friend and coworker, whirled in like a hurricane. "Oh my GAWD," she howled, "you're not going to believe the day I've had! You're coming to O'Hooligans so I can tell you all about it over multiple alcoholic beverages, right?"
Godzilla merely grumbled and continued to search. How in the name of all that was holy did his desk turn into utter chaos like this?
"Because," Svetlana said, now whispering conspiratorially, "it's RIDICULOUS. And it involves Overseer Marsh." She drew that last bit out in a singsong manner, trying to get Godzilla's attention.
"Ah!" Godzilla had finally found the tickets, buried beneath a circus flier that must be at least three years old. How did they wind up here? "Do you see these?" he asked, in his slightly nasal tone. "These are the most important thing in my life right now. Do you know why?"
Svetlana gave him a baffled look.
"Tonight is the first night I've got full custody of Minilla, and these are tickets to the PokeRanger concert. We are going, and nothing is going to stop us!"
Svetlana gave a sad, frustrated scoff. "Right, right, I forgot you're going to have the little munchkin from now on."
"No, no," Godzilla countered, "I don't want to hear any petty pejoratives like that - Minilla isn't a munchkin, or a rugrat, or a …"
"All right," Svetlana mumbled eye-rollingly.
"Or a secret Communist double agent sent to destroy our nation through targeted cyber attacks."
Svetlana gave him a look. "Why would I call him that?"
"Demented sex puppet, none of it."
"Okay!"
Godzilla opened his mouth as if he was going to pursue this line of examples further, but closed it, then placed the tickets into his pocket protector. Why hadn't he just stored them there in the first place?
"So … do you really think they'll do it?"
"Who?" Godzilla asked as he stood up, still hunched over. The office was pretty large, but nowhere near as large as him. He grabbed his briefcase and began walking out of the room. It was 4!
"Adam and Pikachu. Will they really get married onstage?"
"I don't … I think you have me mistaken for someone who bought these tickets for someone OTHER than their child," Godzilla responded.
"You don't even know?" Svetlana disbelieved askingly. "Those are tickets for tonight at Radio City Music Hall?"
"Yeah."
"They've been building to this all tour. They're supposedly gonna get married as part of the media blitz for Adam's new album."
"Oh?" Godzilla pondered. "That seems ridiculously contrived."
"It's the new millennium, big guy!" Svetalana was human, in contrast to Godzilla, who was decidedly not. "Everything needs a hook now! Hell, even if it lasts just a year, it'll be time for a new album or exercise video or whatever by then!"
"Why do you do that?" the forest green-skinned creature asked as he pushed the front door open, ducking down to make it through it.
"What?"
"Talk like you're in a commercial or a movie trailer at all times. It's .." He shrugged and wrinkled his snout. "Disconcerting."
"Why do you always talk like you have a stick up your ass, champ?" Svetlana asked. Godzilla only grunted in reply.
"I think," Svetlana said, poking him gently and bobbing around like a prizefighter, "maybe YOU need to get married! Get a little somethin'-somethin' goin' for the king of the monsters, huh? Work a little of that tension out of those .. fins? Are those fins?"
Godzilla tossed his briefcase into the passenger's seat of his car, then got in, door still open. "Please, Svetlana," he said in a placating manner, "if I wanted to wet my whistle, I don't need to get MARRIED to do so … after all," he added, wiggling his eyebrows, "it is the new millennium."
He shut his door and drove off, leaving Svetlana to gape after him. Her mouth eventually transubstantiated into a smile.
Adam felt like his heart was about to explode. It triphammered in his chest, and he stared at himself in the mirror, dismally examining the ridiculous green outfit in which he was clad.
"I'm a frog … again," he said with an attitude of misery.
"Hey, buddy," Tommy said, smacking him on the shoulder, "you look great!"
Adam looked at him with a studied mien of physiognomic disbelief. "You really think so?"
"Yeah, totally," Tommy said, smiling as always. "Hey!" he said as if he'd just figured out pi to wherever it finally started to repeat. "You wanna do some karate?" Tommy took up a starting pose, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He was … sort of … dressed for a wedding, in a tux with cut-off arms and trousers that'd been whittled down to long short length. He somehow always looked more at home when he was about to spar.
Adam sighed. "I really don't think everyone would appreciate it if I came out on stage with pit stains and hair that had come unmoussed."
Tommy looked around, his eyes moving quickly like he was processing things at 1.6GHz. "Yeah," he finally agreed, nodding. "Yeah, you're probably right."
"Five minutes, everyone!" called out a stagehand passing by Adam's dressing room.
Tommy now gripped Adam's shoulder when he smacked it. "This is gonna be great! You want this, right?"
"Yeeeeeah," Adam teased out. In his heart, he was certain. Wasn't he?
"Pikachu's great! You guys are gonna be great together!"
"Yeah," Adam said, a little more confident now.
"Sir?" Adam's personal assistant, Tea, came in, a generation 9 9.2" iPad Pro displayed prominent in her hand. "I hate to do this so close to the show, but … I have something I think you should see."
Adam had hired Tea because she looked like Joan Rivers, so he assumed she'd be great fun to pal around with, but she was always deadly serious and it made him feel glum.
"What is it?"
Tea held it out, and at first all Adam could see was the giant TMZ logo displayed on the screen, but it quickly turned into a grainy, shaky video, obviously shot with a cell phone.
On the screen came a drunken Pikachu, in his black groom's tux, weaving in front of Ash Ketchum.
"You sure you want to do this, buddy?" Ash's faint voice called, laughing.
"*Pika pi*!" Pikachu slurred his words.
Ash laughed, and yelled, "I choose you!"
The camera panned over and Adam saw some other young anime kid call some goddamn Pokemon forth from their ball.
"Pikachu, use-" Ash began, but Pikachu gave a long belch and fired a lightning bolt from his fingertip and the strange mixture of a scarab and a Panzer tank exploded, screamed, imploded, had its skin literally melt away from its bones, then it fell to the ground in a faint.
"*Pikuh*!" Pikachu said, then vomited. The people behind the camera laughed uproariously and Adam heard a faint, "Oh, man!" before the screen cut to black and again TMZ's logo blared across the screen.
Adam dropped the generation 9 9.2" iPad Pro to his side, feeling a tear forming in his left eye pocket.
"Oh, man!" Tommy said, still breathlessly excited, but obviously shaken. "Who would've known he was such a … such a *rat*!"
There was a silence, then Tea couldn't help but say, "Technically, everyone."
"Everyone but me," Adam said, slamming the generation 9 9.2" iPad Pro into Tea's stomach as he walked out of the dressing room. "Now I have a show to do!" he yelled emotionally.
Minilla couldn't stop jumping up and down and clapping their hands at everything. Godzilla regretted giving them that lollipop on the way over, but Minilla loved them.
"Look at that!" Minilla gasped. Godzilla looked, and realized Minilla seemed to be pointing at a garbage can.
"Uh huh," he responded, trying to sound suitably impressed.
Minilla gasped. "And that!" Godzilla didn't even try to figure out what the object of awe was this time, he just tried to move a little further forward through the crowd. Their tickets allowed them into the "pit" area right before the stage, though for this PokeRanger tour, of course, there was no moshing. It wasn't that kind of a concert.
He hoped. He realized he didn't really know. Oh, no. What if he'd gotten them into something terrible? Suddenly he stopped trying to get closer. Minilla was slightly taller than most of the humans here, anyway, so really this was close enough. Beside him was a teenybopper-looking girl with a giant sign that read LET'S GET MARRIED!
There to heighten the whole conceit of the tour, Godzilla assumed. The girl shook the sign in time to the preshow music and chewed gum.
Godzilla adjusted his shirt and looked around the place. It was nice to get out, he realized. He even felt a smile playing capture the flag on his lips and winning, planting its own joyous flag in place of the dour expression he normally wore.
The lights began to dim, and cheering arose. The woman beside him suddenly stopped dancing and shoved her sign at Godzilla. "Here, hold this!" she yelled. "I gotta murder a man and his family about a horse."
"What?" Godzilla asked, flustered but taking the sign.
"Bathroom!" she shouted.
"But it's … the show's starting!"
"Hey!" she yelled, and suddenly time seemed to slow down and the lights dimming took on a magical, ethereal quality. Suddenly all he saw was her eyes, and her lips. "When you gotta go," she said as if imparting the wisdom of the ages, "you gotta go."
Godzilla gasped as the woman walked away and time resumed its normal speed. Minilla was yelling beside him as an incredibly green man of Asian descent walked onto the stage. Was … was he crying? Everything felt very surreal to Godzilla.
The green-suited man entered from stage left. In the middle of the stage a huge cloud of smoke and flame exploded, and as it dissipated, in the midst of it stood a smiling priest. A light came on at an obvious entrance at stage right, but nothing appeared there.
Minilla was shouting and jumping, clapping like mad. Everyone cheered as the man in green muttered a desultory "hi" into the microphone. He smiled slightly at the adulation, but kept eyeing stage right.
"I, uh …" he started, then sniffled, staring out at the crowd. He seemed to notice Godzilla's sign, and while it might have been Godzilla's imagination, he thought he shared a slight sardonic grin with the man in green. "Who's ready for a wedding!" Everyone cheered even louder.
From stage right, Pikachu suddenly bounded in, pumping his fist in the air. He wore a tuxedo top with no pants.
"*Pika! Pikashuuu*!" he slurred, obviously drunk, his microphone nowhere near his mouth half the time. He pointed at the other guy ("Adam," Godzilla had sussed out from all the shouting) and stifled a belch unsuccessfully in his armpit. "*Pika*," he started breathlessly. "*Pika pi, pika pika … chuuuuuuuu.*" And with this last proclamation he fell to the floor, insensate.
The mic rolled close to his face, and slight snoring could be heard.
Adam looked back at the crowd, now openly crying and not trying to hide it. There was stunned silence.
"I … well, you all came here for a stunt, and it looks like you got one, along with me," he choked out. Godzilla had to admit, he felt bad for this poor guy. From what Godzilla could tell, Adam had done nothing to deserve this. Godzilla looked down at Minilla, whose eyes were misting. They were now wringing their hands together.
"I …" Adam gave a deep breath and obviously gathered himself. The priest coughed embarrassedly behind him.
Adam started again, stronger this time. His eyes once again caught Godzilla's, and Godzilla tried to give him reassuring vibes. "If things aren't working," Adam began, "try something different, right? My *halmoni* always said that, and she was a wise woman. So … here we go. Yes," he said, nodding at Godzilla and waving him forwards, "let's get married!"
Everyone silently turned to stare at Godzilla. He felt the color drain from his face as his huge maw dropped open, his eyes growing to the size of two moons orbiting far too close together. He had the look of a cat that had entered a room and received a marriage proposal.
Godzilla started to formulate the beginnings of a rational response when, suddenly, the entire auditorium erupted in cheering. The priest approached the stage, and people in the pit made a pathway for Godzilla.
Godzilla looked down at Minilla, who was cheering, too. "Dad!" they yelled. "Dad, you gotta do it!"
"But, but–" Godzilla sputtered. He had no articulate way of responding and explaining why this was insane. *Am I dreaming?* he wondered crazily.
"Da-aad," Minilla insisted, cocking their head toward the stage, eyes opening wider.
Barely aware that he was doing it, as if in a trance, Godzilla approached the stage and hefted himself up on the stage, handing the sign off to one of the security guards.
Adam smiled up at him as he approached. "Okay?" he asked demurely, and he seemed so sweet that Godzilla shrugged and responded, "Okay."
The priest whispered discreetly, "Name?" Godzilla murmured the response, and the priest gave a noncommittal "mm."
The priest quickly began the ceremony, deftly changing the bits that needed changing to be less specific. Godzilla stared out into the audience, making sure he still had an eye on Minilla.
"Do you, Adam Park, take this monster to be your lawfully wedded spouse, till death do you part?" the priest asked.
"I do," Adam replied.
"Do you, Gojira, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
Godzilla shook his head and pinched himself, which earned a hearty chuckle from the audience and a smile from Adam. They held hands now. "I … guess I do!" Godzilla responded.
"If there's anyone here who knows why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace."
In the silence, soft snores came from Pikachu for a few moments.
"Then by the power invested in me by the state of New York, I hereby declare you two MARRIED!" the priest yelled. "You may kiss!"
Godzilla awkwardly attempted to kneel down, but still towered over Adam, so he tried a couple of times to put his arms under Adam's arms. Once Adam realized what he was doing he went along with it. Godzilla lifted him and they kissed awkwardly. Godzilla couldn't help glancing at the audience as they kissed.
Adam whispered before being lowered to the ground, "Go backstage and talk to my assistant, Tea. She'll get your information and we'll meet tomorrow, okay? Until then, enjoy the concert?" They gave each other a look like that of two people who'd just survived a hurricane together, then smiled, and Godzilla lifted his hand, all digits extended, to let Minilla know he'd just be a few minutes. Minilla did their best to give him a thumbs up in return, and Adam wiped the tears from his eyes and returned to center stage.
Godzilla subtly kicked the mic near Pikachu offstage as he ducked behind a rafter. Two roadies slowly drug the unconscious Pokemon off the stage.
*How the hell am I going to explain this to Svetlana?* he wondered.
