Godzilla: King of the Monsters

A Fan-Rewrite of the Warner Bros. Motion Picture

Written by JurassicKaiju14

Chapter 1 - San Francisco

San Francisco, 2014. The Golden Gate Bridge.

Seven year old Madison Russell usually enjoyed it whenever her family would go out on the Golden Gate Bridge. She loved to press her little face against the windows of their SUV and peer out at the big blue ocean beyond the bay, or look back at the tall skyscrapers of San Francisco behind them. Both were beautiful to her, and she relished it whenever they got the chance to go out here.

But it wasn't nearly so fun today.

The bridge was choked up with traffic; cars, trucks, and an unusually large amount of school buses were lined up bumper-to-bumper with one another like sardines in a can. There was no small amount of horns honking and people shouting either at each other, filling the air with a cacophony of noise. Policemen were doing their best to organize the chaos, but to no avail.

And it was raining, too, and that just added to everyone's collective misery. The windows of the SUV were continuously splashed with showering rainwater, and the police officers outside looked thoroughly soaked, even with their heavy black raincoats.

But the misery of the slow traffic and the pouring rain didn't distract from the overall aura of fear and borderline panic that emanated from the fleeing throng. It was the same feeling that Madison couldn't shake off no matter how many times she tried to distract herself from it.

Monsters were coming. Two bug-like things that the people on the news called "MUTOs"; gigantic, black creatures with glowing red eyes that could turn off electricity whenever they wanted to. Cars stopped, planes crashed, and phones and computers stopped working whenever they came by. One had already attacked Hawaii and the other a city called Las Vegas, and now they were both coming to San Francisco.

And then there was another one coming in from the sea. A monster that was supposed to be even bigger and more dangerous than the MUTOs.

A monster named Godzilla.

Madison had heard that name a few times before. From her parents, mostly, or those two people from the government that sometimes talked to them over the phone, or, more rarely, came over to visit. She knew that this Godzilla had something to do with Mom and Dad's job, but she could never quite figure out what exactly.

One time she had asked her mother who Godzilla was. And she'd just replied that he was an animal that she and her father were helping the government study. But then she told her that she couldn't tell her any more than that, and that she shouldn't talk to other people about it. "Trust me, it's for the best," she had said.

Madison wondered if maybe it would have been better to tell people about Godzilla earlier. Maybe people would have been less surprised and more prepared for him when he did come.

She slumped back into her seat and tried to take her mind off of everything. It wasn't easy; she hadn't gotten to bring any books or toys with her when the evacuation order came. She first tried listening in on what Mom and Dad were doing in the front seats. Dad was on the phone, and it looked like he was trying to call the same person over and over again; she heard the name "Serizawa" more than once. In between calling attempts he and Mom would talk in hushed, frantic whispers, as if trying to make sure they weren't heard. They sounded worried, and listening to them only made Madison more unsettled than she already was, so she resorted to simply hanging her head and twiddling her thumbs.

"You doing alright?"

That was the voice of Andrew, her older brother of twelve years. She looked up from her thumbs to see his sky blue eyes peering at her from behind his mop of curly brown hair with a look of concern.

Andrew had always been nice to her. Nice to pretty much everyone, actually. For as long as she could remember, Madison couldn't recall a single time when he'd ever been mean to anybody. Anytime she had a problem, and for whatever reason didn't feel like going to Mom or Dad, she would always go to Andrew about it.

She went to him now.

"I'm scared," she whispered.

Andrew smiled and took her hand in his, giving it a little squeeze. "I know. I am too."

"You don't look it."

"It's because I know everything's going to be alright."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure." He pointed out the window towards the bay. "Did you see all those ships out there? The ones with the big guns? They must have every ship in the navy out there. They're not gonna let him get through. And did you see those jets pass over us? They're gonna help keep him away too."

Madison still wasn't convinced. "And what happens if it doesn't work?"

"Then Mom and Dad will get us out of here. They're not gonna let anything happen to us." He said it like it was a matter of fact.

Andrew gave Madison's hand another squeeze and looked her in the eyes. "It's going to be okay," he told her. "Trust me. They'll make sure we're safe. And so will I."

Madison considered this for a moment before answering with a simple "Thanks."

Andrew smiled as he let go of her hand. "Happy to help," he said with another smile of his own.

Madison turned away from Andrew and laid back into her seat. Andrew's little pep talk had certainly helped. She felt a little bit better now.

Just a bit.

She returned her gaze to the window, looking out at the gray sky and ocean beyond, and trying her best to tune out the noise from outside and the hushed whispers from the seats in front.

For what seemed to be the thousandth time that day, Mark Russell dialed Dr. Serizawa's number into his phone, put it to his ear and waited. When it told him in its sickeningly polite voice to please leave a message yet again, he almost had half a mind to throw the thing to the floor, but then settled for simply huffing in frustration.

"Still nothing?" Emma asked from the seat beside him.

Mark just shook his head, lips pursed. "Dead silence."

"He practically runs Monarch," Emma said. "He's probably busy right now."

"Emma, we work for Monarch. Serizawa and Vivienne hired us personally. You'd think they'd at least check in on a couple of their members…"

"Well did you try calling Vivienne? She's probably free."

Mark nodded and dialed her number. While they waited, Emma took a look out the window back at the city. It was shrouded in mist and rain, but she could still make out the skyline rising up against the gray clouds, choppers hovering overhead and the occasional fighter squadron zooming past..

Mark and Emma Russell had been working for Monarch for around least two years now, brought on board after a certain bioacoustics experiment of theirs had drawn the attention of a certain pair of government scientists to their lab at MIT. It had seemed like a dream come true at the time. Mark was an anthrozoologist, Emma a paleobiologist. Animal studies were practically their whole lives. It was that mutual love for nature that had led them to meet and find a mutual love for each other. And now here they got the chance to work with creatures that anyone else might have written off as pure fantasy. The pay wasn't that bad either; certainly better than what they would've gotten back at MIT.

Of course, the job came with its difficulties. The move from Boston to San Francisco had been a little tough to adjust to at first, especially for the kids. Luckily they'd managed to pull through at least that.

Secondly was the secrecy. Monarch was a government agency, and the whole thing had to be kept under wraps, away from public scrutiny. Even from the children. Emma still remembered that one day when Maddie had asked who Godzilla was, and she hated having to lie to her about it. To this day she still couldn't fathom why the government would want to keep what they were studying a secret; it had always seemed remarkably impractical to her.

And then it sometimes seemed that Monarch was a secret unto itself; or at least to Mark and Emma. Despite having worked for them for these two years, they still had no idea how big it actually was. They didn't know if they were part of a small band of government researchers or if it was some larger branch. They only received limited bits of data and information, most of it related to their jobs, just enough so that they could do them and nothing more. Mark had expressed it more vocally on some of their more stressful days, but they both had felt like outliers; something picked up from the sidelines as only a minor curiosity.

And with everything going on at that moment, it felt like those last two issues had come around to bite them and everyone else crowded together on this bridge. If only the government had been upfront about this, maybe…

Emma was abruptly pulled from her thoughts when she heard Mark huff in frustration and half-place, half-drop the phone into a cupholder.

"Her too?" she asked.

"Her too," Mark replied as he leaned his head back into the headrest of his seat. Emma could see his hands clenching the steering wheel.

"We should have known," he continued. "We should have been the first to know about this, but no! No warnings, no instructions–"

"If they're working with the military, then they're probably held up right–" "I get that Emma, but still at least they could have–" He was cut off by a loud beeping and an unintelligible and probably obscene shout from behind their car. The tightly jammed row of vehicles had crept forward a bit, and the people behind them were getting impatient. He gently pushed down on the gas pedal and inched the SUV up the meager few feet they'd been granted.

With that done, he gave a quick glance to the seats behind them. Andrew had pulled a book out of his backpack and was reading it to Madison, pointing her to the various pictures inside. For a moment he flicked his eyes up to meet those of his father's, gave a small nod, and then returned his attention to Madison.

Mark sighed and turned back to Emma, lowering his voice. "We could have been out of here sooner," he whispered. "We all could have been out and safe and far away from them. And now…"

He shut his eyes and pursed his lips. He felt Emma's hand reaching out to hold his, and he finally found the words he was trying to say.

"…what if we don't make it? What if we can't protect them?"

"I know," Emma whispered. "I know. I'm scared too."

For a while they just sat there, taking comfort in each other, simply letting the others' presence and touch do the speaking for them. And in that stillness, they began to feel their worries subside. Not go away entirely–in this situation it was all but impossible–but at least subside.

They would get through this. They would. They had to. There was no way on this Earth that either of them would let their family down.

No way at all.

"Is that a tank?" Madison suddenly blurted out.

Both adults snapped their heads up to look out the windshield. Sure enough, a line of tanks was beginning to come down from the opposite direction of the bridge, flanked by the ocassional Humvee and soldiers carrying assault rifles and rocket launchers.

"Holy cow…" Andrew muttered.

"What are they doing?" Emma asked. "This is an evacuation route, why are they coming this way? They're going to block up the whole bridge, slow everybody–"

"Wait a minute," Mark said. "They're stopping."

And so they were. The tanks, one after the other, began turning off to the left side of the fleeing traffic, crumbling guard-rails beneath their treads as they did, and stopping just short of the edge of the bridge before turning their turrets seaward. The soldiers took up positions alongside them, aiming their weapons of choice in the same direction.

"Why are they stopping here?" Emma asked. "What are they doing?"

"Mommy, what's going on?" Madison asked. They could hear fear creeping into her voice. "Dad?" Andrew added.

"We don't know right now, kids," Mark said, still keeping his eye on the row of military vehicles.

He turned back to Emma. "Wait, you don't think that–"

And that was when they all heard the growl echoing across the bay. Low, deep, guttural; it sent their bones rumbling, and they were half-certain the car shook a bit as well.

Everybody froze when they heard it. The children for the simple reason that it was the most terrifying, unearthly thing they'd heard in all their lives. But for Mark and Emma, it was a great deal worse.

They knew that sound. They'd heard it before. Only from audio recordings sent to them from Monarch, but they'd know it anywhere.

It was him.

Mark began to feel fear creeping back into his chest. He felt his heart beginning to beat faster, his breath quickening.

"Which direction?" Emma asked.

"The left," Mark replied. Emma leaned forward to look past him out to see out.

"Anything?" She shook her head. "It's too foggy, I can't see him."

Mark had just turned his head to look himself when the air beside the bridge seemed to explode into a flapping, screeching white mass. He heard Madison let out a scream and Andrew stop just short of cussing.

Seagulls. A gigantic flock of them rising up from the water, flying as fast as they could, screeching like ther was no tomorrow. Blind panic.

Like a predator had just entered the area.

"Okay," Mark said, trying his best to keep his voice as calm but stern as he could manage. "Kids, make sure you're strapped in because we might need to move fast soon."

"Andrew, make sure Maddie's strapped in." Emma added.

"She is," Andrew replied. "Is it one of the monsters?"

"Is it Godzilla?" Madison asked. She sounded on the verge of crying.

Emma fumbled on what to say for a moment. "Maybe…yes, yes it is." No sense in keeping secrets anymore, she thought to herself.

Mark was just about to open his mouth–to say what, even he wasn't sure afterwards–when the first missile streaked up from the bay and over the bridge; the orange light from its rocket sent a glare over the bridge as it passed, leaving a trail of gray smoke behind it. Then came another missile after it. And another. And yet another one.

Andrew yelped in surprise. Madison started wailing in terror. And from the cars ahead and behind them came the sound of surprised screaming as the missiles sailed close–dangerously close–over the cables and beams of the bridge.

As the terrifying barrage continued, Mark kept looking from one side to the other in an attempt to spot the missiles' target. It couldn't possibly be the bridge they were aiming for. The only explanation he could think of was that Godzilla was actually right under the bridge, beneath their very feet.

"Mark!" He heard Emma shout. "The line's moving!" He looked and saw it was true. The whole wall of cars before them was starting to move forward the fastest they'd moved all day.

"Everyone hang on!" he shouted. Without waiting for a response, he slammed his foot down on the pedal, feeling himself lurch backward into his seat as the car accelerated. As their car joined the fleeing line of vehicles, he saw overturned police cars, tossed aside in the traffic's flight. Soldiers and police officers were running to and fro, dodging between speeding cars, buses, and their own stationary vehicles, seemingly just as panicked as the civilians.

There was a sudden explosion up ahead of them as a missile collided with one of the bridge cable. It came down onto the roadway with a resounding crash, trailing smoke. The line of cars seemed to stop as one, and Mark slammed on the brakes as hard as he could. They skidded to a halt, stopping practically bumper to bumper with the car in front of them.

"Everyone alright?" Mark asked, panting.

"Andrew? Madison?" Emma said.

Andrew just gave a silent, stunned-looking nod. Madison was whimpering, rubbing her little hands together, tears streaming down her face.

At the sound of a new flurry of screaming, the family looked out the windows and saw another barrage of missiles, this time headed straight for the bridge itself. Mark heard Emma suck in a breath, the children screaming…

…and it was true what they said; your life really did flash before your eyes before you died. At least Mark's did. The day he'd first met Emma, their work in the labs, the wedding, Andrew's birth and Madison after him…it all came and went in a single burst of thought in his brain.

We're all going to die.

And then a dark shape was suddenly between the bridge and the oncoming projectiles, a dull thud of explosions resounding in the family's ears as they impacted it. The shape rose…and rose…and continued to rise, a rumbling animal growl sounding over the bridge as it did.

Godzilla himself.

Three-hundred and fifty feet tall. Upright, bipedal stance. A stocky body covered in charcoal-gray scales, faintly mottled with the dullest of greens, blues, and browns. Two strong arms ending in four-fingered, clawed hands. A thick, gilled neck ending in a boxy-shaped head, split by a maw containing man-sized teeth, topped by two beady, amber colored eyes that peered out at the world from either side of the head. Three rows of sharp, angular spinal fins, rising out of his back like massive shards of stone.

A silence seemed to descend on the bridge as the growl faded. The children stared in stunned silence at the huge thing rising out of the water. Mark and Madison stared too, but in more awe than them.

They'd seen the photos. Heard the recordings, and the few stories that Serizawa and Vivienne had told them. But now he was right there before him, as massive and wonderful and terrible as he'd been described.

Emma leaned her head forward to get a better look at him out the windshield. She couldn't help herself; already her paleontologist's mind, in spite of the terror she felt, was looking over every inch of him, trying to place him. Theropod? Couldn't be, the posture was all wrong, the head was too short and compact, and then there was the arm design. Or maybe he wasn't a dinosaur at all. Some kind of rauisuchid, perhaps?

Then he opened his jaws and roared; a roar so loud and powerful that it seemed to shatter existence itself. Cars shook, bones rattled, and the Russells found themselves covering their ears to drown it out, even though it did no good, as the roar turned into a rumbling growl and ended. One great clawed hand reached out and gripped a massive cable of the bridge, like a child gripping the rope of a swing.

Then the first of the tanks opened fire, and its fellows along with it. The soldiers took aim with their puny rifles and rocket launchers and added to the barrage, filling the air with the noise of battle. The shells burst against his flesh bullets hit and bounced, but none left any sort of lasting mark on him. Godzilla roared back as he took the brunt of the fire; not quite in pain, but something close. If anything, he seemed more annoyed and irritated than anything else. It didn't surprise Emma. He'd survived a nuclear explosion at point blank range; this was nothing to him.

Mark was otherwise occupied. He didn't care about the biological wonder before them. He was more concerned for his family's safety. He felt like the noise and lights of explosions was smothering him, battering his eyes, his ears. Through the din he heard Madison was screaming, saw her clutching Andrew's arm in terror as he watched in panic himself. His eyes flitted back and forth, looking for an escape route of any kind.

They couldn't stay here. They needed to get out. They needed to move.

He looked down the roadway again and saw that one of the tanks had rolled backwards, taking the fallen cable with it and pushing it aside. With the way cleared, cars and buses were beginning to take the chance to bolt. He already saw one bus–a faint yellowish blob in the distance–almost to the other end of the bridge by now, speeding away to safety.

Then and there, Mark saw their opportunity. Quite possibly their last.

He hollered, "HANG ON!", and then without waiting for a response he slammed his foot down on the gas pedal and floored it. He slammed backwards into his seat as the car accelerated. Andrew and Madison yelped as the same happened to them.

"Mark, what are you doing?!" Emma shouted.

He didn't answer. Not out of ignorance, but because he was focused on swerving the car around other vehicles and all the people darting around; the last thing anyone needed was for him to hit somebody. By now they were almost to the halfway point of the bridge.

Then Emma looked at Godzilla again and saw him turning away from the fire from the battleships, roaring in agitation, wheeling right at the bridge. He looked like he was about to walk right through it.

And they were driving headlong to meet him.

"Mark, look out!"

"Just hold on, we can make it!" he shouted back.

"Mark–"

"We can make it!"

"MARK, HE'S COMING!"

Mark finally looked up and saw him leaning right over the bridge. Quickly, he twisted the wheel to the left and slammed on the brakes as hard as he could, and everyone lurched to one side as the car started to spin.

Emma's face hit the window at the exact moment Godzilla crashed through the bridge. There was a great, resounding crash as his midsection fell full on the structure, the vehicles and people who had been in his path disappearing beneath him as he went through. And then he was gone, trailing smoke and debris, leaving the bridge snapped in two behind him, each of it's wrecked ends sagging downward over the bay.

The SUV skidded to a halt just at the point where the slope began, leaving a view of the drop to the water out the left-side windows. They could faintly feel the car teetering on the cracked roadway.

For a moment, everyone stopped to catch their breath. Madison was quietly whimpering, clinging to Andrew. He was hugging her back, but looked just as terrified as she was. From the other side of the ruined bridge, Godzilla's roar echoed again.

"Is…is everyone alright?" Emma asked between breaths.

Before anyone could answer, there was a sudden crack, and the car lurched to the left, towards the edge of the bridge. There was a grinding sound as the car began to slide down the pavement.

"Everyone out, now!" Mark shouted. He was already undoing the lock of his door, throwing it open and climbing out, Emma close behind him. As soon as they were out Mark doubled back to open the back door for the kids to crawl out.

Emma saw that most of the vehicles behind them had already begun turning back, but they weren't the only ones on the edge. A half-dozen other vehicles were beside their own, either precariously perched on or sliding down the slope and disappearing.

A frightened scream of terror suddenly caught her attention. A little way away, she saw a young soldier–he couldn't have been older than his early 20's–desperately trying to scramble up the slope, watching in terror as a battered humvee slid down the pavement towards him. Emma flinched as she saw it smash right into him, throwing him off the bridge and tumbling down after him.

"Emma!" Mark called. He was just helping Madison out of the SUV. "Take her and keep her away from the edge while I get Andrew out."

"Maddie, come here, honey," Emma said as she took a whimpering Madison and held her close.

"It's going to be okay," she whispered. "It's going to be okay."

Mark was turning back to the car now. It was starting to quicken in its slide, and Mark was having trouble keeping his balance on the increasingly steep and cracked slope.

"Andrew, I need you to move now!"

Then he saw that Andrew was struggling in his seat, frantically pulling at his seatbelt. "I can't! It's stuck!"

Oh lord, not now. Mark thought. Not now!

Suddenly the belt came loose and Andrew was scrambling out of his seat. At the same time, there was a cracking sound and the SUV suddenly sped up in its slide. All in the same moment he saw Andrew just getting to the door, and then the car tilted to one side with a groaning of metal and vanished over the edge.

"ANDREW!"

Mark rushed forward as far as his balance would allow him, peering over the edge.

This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be.

Then he saw a pair of hands gripping the cracked edge of the roadway. Andrew's head rose up, his face strained, panicked tears running down from his eyes.

"D-dad! Help!"

Whatever initial relief Mark had felt dissipated with that plea. "Andrew! Just hang on, I'm coming to get you! Just hang on!" He began edging his way forward, crouching down as he went. He felt his feet slip, and for one awful moment he thought he would go tumbling forward and send the both of them to their deaths, but then he felt something grab the back of his shirt. He looked behind him and saw Emma holding onto him. Maddie was watching a little way away, eyes wide, face fraught with nervous suspense.

"Just get him up," Emma told him. "I'll hold on to you."

Mark nodded, then began inching forward again, Emma maintaining a steady grip on him. By now he was almost at the edge and could see most of Andrew clearly. He was holding on to the very edge of the wrecked roadway, legs dangling out over the bay far below.

"Andrew," Mark told him, trying to sound and stay calm. "Andrew, listen to me. I need you to reach up and take my hand and I'll pull you up, okay?"

"I can't!" Andrew said. "I'll slip!"

"You won't," Mark replied. "We're here, do you hear me? We're hear for you. But I need you to reach up, okay?"

He saw Andrew hesitate for a moment. And then slowly, very slowly, he let one hand go and began to reach it up, the fingers of his other hand tightening on the edge.

"That's it," Mark said as he reached his own arm forward. There was just about a foot between them. The fingers on Andrew's other hand, the one holding on to the edge, were beginning to tremble. Mark edged forward still, closing the distance. Now their fingers were almost touching.

"That's it, Andrew. Just keep reaching. I'm here for you."

And then Andrew's other hand lost its grip.

Time slowed to a crawl. The noises of the world disappeared, replaced by a single wailing note that piereced Mark's ears. The rain and the pavement beneath his hands and knees seemed to dull and fade away. His entire reality was narrowed down as he watched Andrew fall, slowly, like a piece of paper drifting down from a high window, his body going completely still. He mostly watched his face. It bore no look of betrayal, barely even any terror. It was a look of surprise, of disbelief. Like he couldn't believe it was happening.

He watched him up until his body hit the water far, far below with a white splash and disappeared.

And just like that, Andrew Russell was gone.

Time resumed. The feeling of rain and pavement came back to Mark's skin. The wailing note died, and he slowly became aware of a hoarseness in his throat. Some distant part of his mind realized that the sound had been him screaming.

Screaming Andrew's name.

He was only dimly aware of being pulled back up the slope and slumping down into a sitting position on the ground. He numbly stared up at Emma, standing beside him. Maddie had come up beside her and buried her face in her side. Emma said nothing to him, but her eyes and face spoke for her.

No. This isn't happening. This can't be happening.

A loud splash echoed from the water near the bridge off to the right, catching the family's attention. Godzilla was trudging through the water towards the city and a fleet of boats floating along its coast. Jets were falling from the sky, completely powerless, like scraps of paper, plunging into the water like stones. The monster snarled and glared up at the sky as a dark shape–angular, winged, and very much living–dove down from the clouds and pounced on one of the boats and dragging it beneath the surface. A moment later it hauled itself onshore, becoming a gaunt, insectoid body with long, hooked legs, thrashing the boat and ripping something from it's hull, before unfurling its wings again and leaping into the air. Godzilla flexed his claws and roared as it left, a roar of pure, animalistic contempt.

The Russell family watched in silence as the demons roamed the Earth.

Author's Note: BEHOLD! I HAVE RISEN FROM THE DEPTHS TO GIVE YOU THE FIRST REAL CHAPTER OF THIS LITTLE VENTURE OF MINE!

I am so so sorry for taking so long. Everything went bananas when the virus hit, and it kinda threw off my whole summer. But...here we are. I made it back with a new chapter. And on the day before I go back to college, too. I can't believe that two months from now it'll be a year since I put up the prologue. Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long to put out. And hey, with Godzilla vs. Kong delayed to next year (a decision that I think is really for the best, given the craziness of the world right now), it gives me more time to work on this before the next one's hype train starts chugging down the track.

But yeah, first big change from the actual movie. I know having a scene where a child character dies is kinda morbid–I don't like children dying myself–but I wanted the audience to get a greater sense of the loss, as well as a little bit of who the Russells were before everything went downhill for them. And I wanted it to happen on the Golden Gate Bridge so I could give it a greater tie-in to the 2014 movie.

Anyways, here ya go. Sorry again for taking so long. Next time we flash forward to the (then) present-day of 2019 at Outpost 61 in Yunnan, China.

'til we meet again.

-JurassicKaiju14