Echoes of Destruction

Chapter 1

Somewhere in China:

He had become aware, after centuries of sleep he had awoken, blood once again ran through his veins bringing him the warmth of life. He was alive once again, but to what had he awoken? He sensed a change in the outer world, a change he did not like.

He closed his all-seeing eye and reached out with his mind. Yes he was correct the world he had once known was gone and in its place were cities, pollutants, technology and the inferiors.

His lip curled in a snarl at the thought of the inferiors' filth contaminating his world. His reptilian eye then caught something of interest across the sea on the island of Japan, Another like him self waded onto the shore, its body large and bulky with scales that were colored in a charcoal black. The creature had several rows of dorsal plates running down its back and the creature's aura radiated with immense power. He and this creature were the same, they were in a sense brothers. He observed the beast a while longer as the inferiors gathered at the end of the shoreline to greet him.

"How long till that blasted machine gets here?" was the aggressively loud question presented by general Teshima who was not at all happy about having an old fashioned standoff with the monster Godzilla, with only conventional weapons that had proven ineffective time and time again.

"Mecha Godzilla won't be ready for another four hours, sir" was the reply given by a young private by the name of Takao Uetake.

Takao was fresh out of the military academy and had been waiting to see some real action. But now that he was this close to the king of all Kaiju he wasn't too eager to engage in battle, and the thought of radiation poisoning from being this close to Godzilla frightened him even more.

"Four hours?" Teshima screamed, "I'm practically staring down Godzilla's Gullet and the best they can do is four hours!"

"It's a delicate process sir, I'm sure when they're ready they'll send the Mecha as soon as possible" this was the best excuse Takao had. He didn't know what was keeping G-force from sending Mecha Godzilla, he only knew what they had told him and that was they would have to wait another four hours before Mecha Godzilla was fully operational. In the mean time they had to keep Godzilla from entering Osaka,Takao rolled his eyes, "Yeah that's going to happen," he thought.

Godzilla stood upon the shore, confused - the last thing he could remember was a terrible burning, as his flesh melted off his body. He remembered the searing pain very well, but after that he only remembered waking up near Osaka's shore line. he had come ashore to see if the human cities offered any answers, but instead of a vacant city he found the humans' military once again ready to challenge his power. But if it was one thing Godzilla was ready for it was a fight. The saurian's dorsal plates began to flash, he would not be hindered by humans, he must find out what had happened.

Godzilla then remembered the psychic Miki. He remembered the bond they had once shared, she was kind but easily intimidated; she had worked for humans that hurt him, but she herself never wished harm upon him. Even when she piloted his metal double he could sense her reluctance. But she was only one he reminded himself, the rest of the humans only wanted to hurt him to kill him he would not let them! He would destroy all of them! Them, there females and there offspring all must be destroyed! He must… No! there was no need for such senseless slaughter, he had never killed other than for food, revenge or defense this was not right but something compelled him, an echo, it compelled him to destroy, a voice instructing him, no commanding him, to obliterate everything!

Godzilla let out cry of pain and began to claw his skull trying make the echo go away, but it wasn't enough, he had to try harder, he must win! Godzilla used every bit of energy he could before he collapsed upon his knees.

China:

"It's almost too easy," Dein chuckled to himself, The 23year old Chinese man had successfully infiltrated the temple of Qi. Dein was a master at what he did, that's why he was the head priest of his order. "These fools," he thought to himself, "They don't even suspect. How did they ever get the job of guarding the masters spell?"

Dein turned down a corner where a small group of monks were. he quickly slipped on the brown robe he had been carrying with him and filtered into the procession unnoticed. The monk's long browns robes ruffled as they turned down into a dark corner with Dein amongst them.

Four monks in the front of the procession stopped to light lanterns, then resumed chanting. Dein was growing nervous - the extra light could tip them off to his identity. He must be more careful, he couldn't afford to fail, not when he was already so close.

The monks halted in front of a large iron door which boasted two bronze door knockers with a frightening reptilian face carved into them. Dein stopped with the rest of the monks; this was it, the resting place of the masters spell, the spell that could free him from his prison - soon it would be in his possession.

The tallest monk, who was also apparently the eldest of them all for he used a cane, to prop himself up. The brows of his eyes were a dirty white color as was what little hair his order allowed.

The elderly man then spoke in Chinese, "My brothers we are here on the 1000th anniversary of the purging of the demon Bagan, and as prophecy foretells this is the year of the beasts return. But I say nay my brothers we will not allow this to pass. So speaks Jie-Quan the eldest of the clan."

The crowd cheered at Jie-Quan's speech. Dein clutched the handle of his silver hunting knife, he knew he'd only get one shot at this so he couldn't screw up.

Dein took a deep breath, "Okay here it goes," Dein pushed his way to the front of the line while jie-Quan opened the large iron door Dein tactically followed Jie- Quan into the brightly lit room.

There were markings painted all over the room, Dein recognized them they were runes, fabled to keep evil sprits at bay, they must not work too well if a man such as himself could slip into this monastery so easily.

Jie- Quan held up the ancient book, its cover was laced with gold and the symbol for hope carved into its binding, the pages were yellow and deteriating but yet the pages would not crumble nor tear.

" this is the unholy book of Bagan it can never be destroyed, but it can be hidden, as we have hidden it for centuries but now I fear the prophecies will come to fruition, I have had a vision that the cult of Bagan as arisen once again! They are small in number and still in infancy, but I do fear that they will try to make an attempt to reclaim this book. I have foreseen there arrival in about three days, we must…" a quiet but low voice came from behind Jie-Quan as he felt something sharp and cool stick into his back, "Wrong old man, we're already here!"

Chaos ensued in the monastery as Jie-Quan's limp body fell into the swarm of monks who had clustered around the book to hear him speak. Dein was pleased with his work, the knife was definitely easier to transport then a revolver, and it got the job done fast, giving him five extra seconds to catch his breath before the monks called for their guards.

Dein with his five seconds up threw a few smoke bombs and let out his best evil laugh that he had been practicing for weeks. The smoke filled the rooms, confusing the already unstable monks further.

Dein quickly grabbed his knife and the book from the dead priest and barreled down through the mass of monks. When the smoke cleared he would have disappeared as if by magic. Dein laughed as he saw the monks bumping into each other and waving about in hopes of stopping him, he loved this trick.

In a place unknown to humanity:

Moil woke with a start while beads of sweat trickled down her forehead, she hadn't had a vision of this magnitude for over a thousand years, not even when King Ghidorah reappeared did she feel such overwhelming dread. Some thing with great power was about to be unleashed upon the world, an inexplicable horror, something that she had not felt in centuries.

Lora came bounding to her sister's side wearing her favorite blue dress and golden crown. "Morning Moil sleep well? You…" Lora caught herself when she saw how frightened her sister was."It's Bagan, isn't it? I sensed him too, he's coming."

Moil shook her head, "It's not just Bagan there's something else, but I can't make it out, but I sense that its powerful and definitely not an ally, but this other entity will have to wait, our present concern is Bagan's resurrection. We must find a way to stop it or allow that monster's destructive influence to once again plague the world."

Laura nodded and followed her sister to Mothra's altar, where The Protector of Infant Island lay motionless as it lived its last days watching over her child.

Laura put her hand up to her sister's and shouted in sync with her sister the word "Fairy".

A small beam of light came out of the elderly Mothra's left antenna and quickly came to the two Elias, forming a small multicolored moth. Moil mounted the tiny insect and motioned for her sister to do the same.

"Moil, how do you plan to stop Bagan's resurrection?" Moil looked at her sister with a worried look on her face, "I don't know Laura, I don't know."

Miki stood in her kitchen holding a steaming mug with the label "I love Tokyo" printed on it.

She was awfully tired but sleep could not come. The dream had upset her beyond the ability to fall asleep again, it was a ghastly dream full of horrific images and dark shades.

There was a great disturbance in the psychic planes, it had been there for over a week now but never to this magnitude. The children at the psychic research institute had also complained of nightmares, but she had never given it much thought - nightmares were very common for those with psychic abilities, for they were very in tune with the world around them and even more so when asleep.

Psychics see events as they happen and sometimes before they happen, but despite the stereotype this was a rare event. Often they only were able to see events taking place, maybe at best 3 to 4 minutes into the future. The rest was based on intuition and educated guesses. It also was extremely rare that they caught an event days or weeks in advance, and ironically that only happened when something terrible was about to take place.

It made Miki laugh when she heard side conversations about wanting to be a psychic or some having some other mental ability - only Miki and other psychics knew what it was really like. The world pictured psychics as these miracle workers that they see on T.V. which nine times out of ten were fakes who got in some lucky guesses due to vague answers that could have been for anyone.

No, to be a real psychic was not very rewarding at all. It was a hard life filled with tormenting nightmares that didn't go away when you woke up. Recently Miki's own abilities had decreased a great deal, that was one of the reasons she left G-force, the other reasons were far more personal. She couldn't bear to participate in anymore of G-force's barbaric acts against Jr. or any other "Kaiju" As the military so fondly dubbed them.

She wasn't an extremist, she understood the need to eliminate certain beings that threatened their very existence, such as King Ghidorah or The Legion, but there were other "Kaiju" that were not imminent threats to mankind such as Godzilla Jr. or Gamera. Even some of the more hostile creatures such as Destroya were merely protecting what they considered their territory. Most were not evil, just confused. That's why Miki was delighted with the Monster Land project in 1999, but her hopes were shattered when the Kilaak invasion came. Monster Land was destroyed and its inhabitants enslaved.

After the Kilaaks were stopped the world governments decided it was too expensive to rebuild Monster Land and that it was far simpler and cheaper to build anti-Kaiju robots to destroy them all! She hated that idea! But what could she do? She was only a hired psychic, not a politician. They wouldn't listen to her, they never did! So she did the only thing she could at the time, she followed orders.

She was constantly regretting those decisions, but never more than when she was commanded to be part of the Mecha Godzilla team, to destroy her life's work, Godzilla. Of all the beasts and creatures they could have sent her against, they chose Godzilla, the only Kaiju she had shared her mind with other than Jr..

It was an easy memory to recall for she was often reminded of the day when she first saw the creature. She and a friend of hers were called to try and locate Godzilla, to determine which direction he was bearing. She eventually found him but by that time the helicopter they were riding in was low on fuel, and needed to stop at a floating helipad to refuel. It was then she first saw him.

Even without a telepathic link she could feel the beast's awesome power. She also knew where he was heading: Osaka! She couldn't let him hurt all those people! She remembered then doing the only thing she could, she organized a psychic link with Godzilla and attempted to change his course or at least delay him for a little while.

Her friend knew what she was doing, she remembered hearing her chase off the soldiers, then she remembered Godzilla's mind when he came face to face with her! There was so much going on inside this creature's mind, so much hatred and anger but at the same time great grief and sorrow, confusion, and terror all jumbled up into one thought that played over and over again in this monsters mind, then Godzilla fought back.

The monsters will was incredibly strong, fighting to keep its mind, its sanity. Miki never could remember what happened after that moment, when she awoke she was told by her friend that she had fainted and that Godzilla was in Osaka. It wasn't until later that she had the vision of Biollante's rebirth, but that was all in the past, the present was the reality, her life's work was gone, her mental powers faded every day, and she no longer worked for G-force.

Everything that made her special was gone or was leaving, she couldn't even keep a steady relationship.

Lt. Koji Shinjo, she remembered him well things were fine for a while as they always are, but after awhile Koji became tired of her pacifist attitude and left as everything in her life did.

Miki shook her head, "I can't undo what's already been done," she told herself.

Then the nightmares came back twirling inside her mind causing her mug to shake in her trembling hand. Whatever the future may bring one thing was certain, she wouldn't be getting much sleep tonight.

She had tossed and turned many times tonight, yet sleep would still not come for one Miss Asigi Kusanagi.

"That terrible dream," she thought.

Every time she closed her eyes there it was, the dream.

It played continuously in her subconscious, she saw a dark shape coming after her - the more she ran the closer it got, and the farther she went the bigger the shadow became, until it was upon her! It then opened its mighty jaws revealing a mouth of flames! Then it swallowed her but then as it licked its colorless lips a larger darker shadow came up from behind it opening its jaws to reveal not only fire but beings in the fire, then the dark form closed its mouth around the first shadow and swallowed it. '

It was at that point the dream would restart itself, leaving a frightened girl in the middle of an abandoned city, to wrestle with dark dreams as a great guardian prepared to do battle.

The whispers continued faster with each passing moment! Godzilla clawed at his head trying to silence the terrible sound, but it accomplished nothing.

The voice just grew stronger urging him to destroy, to kill, to submit! All would fall to the glory of…then suddenly the voices stopped. They had left as quickly as they had come, as if they never were.

Confused but not unthankful Godzilla lifted him self up from where he had fallen. The mighty saurian's body slowly lifted out of the bay as large streams of ocean water poured down his scaly hide and back into the sea.

Godzilla let out a triumphant roar as he began to move towards the mainland and the battalion.

"Blast!" was the only word that General Teshima had shouted in relation to Godzilla's oncoming advance.

"We don't have enough firepower here to take him down!" Teshima pulled a two-way radio out of his black leather pouch, and was about to demand some sort of backup when suddenly the young private Takao, who had been standing by his side the entire evening, pointed to the mist covered sky, and said, "Sir Look! It's Mecha Godzilla!"

He watched as his circumstantial brother fought an unknown force within his mind which was not of his doing, this worried him.

Something had also awoken him from his sleep, he had felt it's power as he regained consciousness. It was the same power that now attempted to enslave his brother! Something was out there, more powerful, more deadly, and far darker then he himself, or anything else that he had seen before. But what was it? There was only one being that could match this level of power and he had ceased to be! Or had it? Could it be that the angel of darkness still lived? Could the beast have returned? The echo have come back? The Echo of Darkness, the Echo of Death, the Echo of Destruction! No! It was a foolish thought there were none now more powerful then he!

He then turned his thoughts back to his brother, the creature was mighty indeed! He had already managed to cast out his mental intruder. He then saw the creature's pain become rage as something approached his vicinity. He turned his eye towards the sky as something began to descend. Then he was able to see the abomination clearly! The Inferiors would dare attempt to defile one of their gods with such an atrocity! How dare they mock them like this! Those fools now they will see what it means to anger a god now they will feel the full force of Bagan!

Bagan began to move, his stony prison began to shake, and rocks of all sizes came crashing down smashing into splinters as they reached the ground or made contact with Bagans scales. In full fury, Bagan began to smash his torso against the walls of his dark prison, but they would not give way. Bagan stopped after a couple more smashes then closed his long cragged eyes and watched as the giant saurian battled his mechanical doppelganger.