Chapter III: Fire from the Sky
Monster Island 2
August 26, 2002
8:00 PM
Godzilla's emerald eyes continued to watch Anguirus nip at its paw. The temperature that particular morning was freezing and a thin layer of fog was hung over the island. The King of the Monsters was standing next to one of the high plateaus; this one had a ramp spiraling around it. An armored truck was driving up the road to the observation post built atop it.
The monster had ignored the visitor, but had remained cautious. The only vehicles he fully trusted were the yellow trucks that brought him his food. The kaiju looked on toward the ocean, blocked by an electrical barrier. He wished he could just swim around the island a little bit, after all Godzilla was part amphibious.
The island, which the humans called "Monster Island 2", was the only home Godzilla knew of apart from Bass Island which he had never been able to relocate. On Bass Island, in 1970, a pack of Godzillasaurs had been caught in the blast of an H-Bomb. His whole family died on that island, his whole species, and he was the only one that remained. Now, his only family was Anguirus.
Godzilla had found this island in 1986 after his 1984 attack on Tokyo. He claimed it as his home, but after mankind moved in it was transformed into a prison. They dumped Anguirus on the landmass with him and the two quickly grew to accept each other.
They were like a pack now.
The armored truck finally made it to the top of the plateau where it pulled into the huge parking garage filled with Type 90 Tanks and many other military vehicles. It parked near the entrance to the base and the door opened to reveal Lee Yamane. Lee was the grandson of Dr. Yamane, the first person to actually study kaiju like the first Godzilla and Anguirus.
Lee was fully dressed in a white leathered trench coat, his usual outfit. The young kaijuologist dragged his fingers through his strait jet black hair before moving onto the entrance.
Two G-Force soldiers stopped him and motioned for his key card. He whipped it out of his pocket and handed it to the troop who scanned it into a console next to the door. The screen showed his face, his bio, and his various records. The soldier returned the card to him and nodded.
The doors unlocked and Yamane stepped inside. A long blue hallway led him past many closed doors until he reached the observation room. There he found Areit, Greg, and James. James, a bright green eyed fellow was the first to notice him.
"Dr. Yamane! My main man!" The kaijuologist said as he stepped forward to shake Lee's hand.
"You finally made it!" Areit said. Yamane was surprised, the female scientist had somehow made herself even more beautiful then last they met.
"I was beginning to think you decided to ditch!" Greg said in his gruff voice.
"Godzilla seemed to displease my presence." Yamane replied to them, "Though I understand he doesn't trust the military like I do."
"Come on pal, I'll get you a drink." Greg said, leading Yamane back down the hall.
G-Force H.Q, Command Office
August 26, 2002
8:05 AM
David Masters sat in his office, barely awake. He had been up all night making arrangements for Mechagodzilla to be shipped to America. Kiryu would stay in Japan and help protect the Eastern countries while Mechagodzilla would protect the Western.
Now that both crews had proven to be worthy fighters, it was finally time to say good bye. The bad media press from a few months ago had finally shifted to the good news: Kiryu's crew was mastering the training simulators and Mechagodzilla's crew had started to take the project a little more seriously.
Both still hadn't gone up against a real kaiju and had grown a bit arrogant of beating the simulators so many times. Masters still wasn't sure what might happen in case of a real attack, but he had faith that his men would succeed.
The crews were saying goodbye to each other before Mechagodzilla would be loaded onto a specially designed cargo ship along with the war-machine's crew. It would arrive in Hawaii in one to two days and from there the crew would fly Mechagodzilla across the Pacific Ocean to American soil.
Some more good news besides the next step in the G-Force projects: The War in the Middle East had finally reached its climax at the city of Baghdad where the last of the Terrorist group Tyrannis had surrendered. The troops would all be coming home to their families, a huge relief. And hopefully Kiryu would be there next time to stop a kaiju attack like Battra's before it led to another war.
The only other news he'd been given was from NASA, they'd lost a moon satellite that had been sent to take pictures of its surface. That was all he'd been told though, so it didn't really matter to him…
G-Force H.Q, Lounge
August 26, 2002
8:05 AM
"I'll be missing your attitude around here Crador." Kane said, punching Vincent across the shoulder.
"My attitude?" Vincent asked surprised, "You're the one with the attitude Kane!" He continued jokingly.
"We should be moving along." Kaiser said, rolling his suitcase along the carpet. "We have a long ways ahead of us." Vincent nodded and turned to follow him.
"Hope we can have another simulation duel." Benedict Ciavo said to Paul Goji as they shook each other's gloved palm.
"I hope so too, just so I can show you what Mechagodzilla is truly capable of." Paul replied.
The two teams, who had worked several long hard years together, said the rest of their goodbyes before the MG Crew were lifted on an elevator out of the underground base and into the sunny morning at Mt. Fuji.
A specialized crew would be flying Mechagodzilla out of the base and onto the carrier ship at sea. The regular crew were picked up by a transport jeep and driven to the local ports where they stayed to watch Mechagodzilla's lift-off. Not too far out across the sparkling sea was a red and black painted cargo carrier, the "Mecha Maru" made specifically with carrying heavy kaiju-sized machines in mind.
A giant trapdoor opened in the middle of the forest at the base of Mt. Fuji and, propelled by its rocket engines, the huge mech hovered out. The locals cheered, but it was easily drowned out by the roar of the four engines. The sun glistened on the reflective iron of the mech's armor and its eyes glowed like bright yellow stars. While the crew had seen CGI rendering of MG, and it stationary in the hanger, it was even more amazing in real life and flying in front of the Japanese volcano.
Trees were ripped from their roots and a cloud of wind washed over the docks and crowds. Waves across the water's surface rolled the opposite direction from the immense wind and some boats came very close to capsizing. Luckily, everyone had been ordered off the water and out of the nearby forests. If they hadn't the project would definitely be experiencing some lawsuits.
NASA H.Q
August 26, 2002
8:25 AM
Michael Griffin sat at his office desk, his usually neat hair hung over his narrow eyes. The single picture from UHTY-01 lay on his desk. It had captivated him for hours and days since it had first been sent back to base. He was there at the control room, it was shown on the front screen and at first, nobody understood what it was, some thought it was just a smudge on the camera.
But not too long later, it was discovered that the satellite had been destroyed, along with all the hard work and money that had been put into it. The only explanation he could think of was that mysterious object had destroyed the satellite. He didn't want to use the word U.F.O since many people could draw the wrong conclusion from it.
The only thing told to the press was that UHTY-01 had crashed in an accident. Griffin's officials had urged him to tell the nation about the object, but Griffin decided not to until later. He wanted to sort some things out first like: Why was there a high concentration of Titanium and Radiation at that point on the moon? And did it have a connection to the object that destroyed UHTY-01?
G-Force H.Q, Lounge
August 26, 2002
8:55 AM
"I'll be missing those guys around here." Lean Blaze said as he took a gulp of a can of soda. The Kiryu crew was sitting on the three lounge couches, something that they hadn't had the time to do until recently. On the 50 inch TV was a rerun of a famous old dramatization of the 1954 Godzilla attack entitled "This is Tokyo." It documented the broadcasts made by Steve Martin, played by Raymond Burr in the show, during Godzilla's attack on Tokyo. It used a mix of actual videos of the attack and sound stages to make it as real as possible.
"They were alright to have around." Kane admitted, "Vincent just got on my nerves a little too much."
"Well," King Joe said, leaning back on the leather couch, "we're home free."
"Until another kaiju rears its ugly head." Lean added.
"Most of Earth's monsters are already imprisoned on the Monster Island chain, nothing but science experiments." Kane replied.
"Battra is still on the loose," Benedict Ciavo said, "Remember that the thing attacked the Middle East not too long ago and triggered a war."
"The war's over." Kane said, "And besides, Kiryu can put down Battra no problem. The thing's one of the weakest monsters we've faced on the training sessions."
"'Weak' is a vast understatement when it comes to kaiju." Joe smiled.
Just then the klaxons above their heads started wailing and the room was bathed in red light. They all stood up and looked around; a maintenance worker was sprinting their way.
"Commander Masters requires your attendance at the Briefing Room!" The man yelled.
"What's going on though!?" Kane said back.
"I'm not sure, but we received an S.O.S from the Monster Islands."
"Oh god…" Joe muttered.
Monster Island 2
August 26, 2002
9:00 AM
Godzilla's ear shattering roar scared all the native birds to take flight and flee from the island. The kaiju closed his maw and looked around, his tail swaying back and forth. Anguirus had felt the same disturbance and was now growling and digging desperately at the ground.
Godzilla turned his head to the heavens and bellowed again, this time louder, his scream actually rippling the air in front of him. The faint sight of the moon in the morning sun made Godzilla even angrier; he had no idea why. Godzilla's spines glowed bright orange and his fiery beam shot from his throat, burning the nearby jungles and rocketing trees into the air.
"Damn!" Greg cursed as he hurried into his seat. "What's going on?" He asked Areit. He and Yamane had just returned from the lounge room where they had been sipping some beer while watching the football game, but then the alarms went off.
"I have no idea!" Areit answered, typing furiously at her keyboard. "Godzilla and Anguirus just started to act up!"
"Check Anguirus's brain sensor!" James demanded to Areit from behind her.
"Do you think it might be that sickness?" She asked.
"It isn't a sickness." Yamane reminded her.
The monitor showed the graph results of brain activity, "Oh no…" She gasped.
"Anguirus is having that double dreaming thing going on again!" Greg observed. But now, the two lines weren't as steady as they should be. Both spiked rapidly back and forth, almost seeming to attack each other.
Below the Observation Window Anguirus was slamming its shelled back into other nearby plateaus, triggering loose rocks to fall hundreds of feet. Meanwhile, Godzilla was thunderously roaring to the sky.
"Godzilla's experiencing the same thing!" Jack said.
"We only have a Brain Activity Sensor on Anguirus though!" Areit told him.
Suddenly the phone rang and Yamane said, "Keep working I'll get it." He ran over and grabbed it off the holster. "Dr. Yamane here…"
"Damn it!" Greg slammed his fist onto the table. The graph showing Anguirus's brain activity had abruptly stopped and now neither line was continuing.
"The Sensor must've dislodged itself from Anguirus's skull." James said. Anguirus honked and then started running around in circles.
"It's going crazy!" Areit pointed.
"That was Monster Island 5." Yamane said as he brushed off his trench coat, "All the other kaiju are experiencing the same problem." He hurried over to a control panel with a screen and typed up a few numbers. Greg and James came up behind him to see what was going on.
"This is one of the remaining cameras on Island 1." Yamane explained to them. In the center of a basin, Destoroyah was spraying its Micro-Oxygen ray, stripping the life from the nearby forests.
"Monster Island 3, where I usually work…" Dr. Yamane brought up another camera view, Megalon and Baragon were trying to burrow to escape from the island, but the maser barricades were preventing them from doing so.
"Monster Island 5," Yamane introduced. Rodan was circling around the island, also trying to find a way out. But the force field held the flying kaiju in its prison.
"I can't explain what's going on!" Yamane turned to face the other kaijuologists while the screen kept playing the camera-feeds. "It can't be a disease; they all just exploded at the same time! Something's got to be confusing them!"
"The double dreaming!" Greg said to him. "That's what's confusing them!"
"But why are they all having this symptom at the same time?!" Areit asked.
"An external force must be affecting the kaiju." James answered. "The question is: what?"
Abruptly, the whole platform quaked. Yamane was thrown out of his seat and hit the floor. Areit stood up to see what was going on. Anguirus had just rammed its head into the wall of the plateau.
"We've got to get out of here!" She realized.
Meanwhile, the G-Force military on the island were buckling into their tanks and vehicles. The green painted armored rovers pulled out of the garage and started down the ramp. They all formed into two lines before their nozzles turned to aim at the leathery hide of Anguirus.
The kaiju was reeling back for another charge at the plateau until each tank fired their missiles simultaneously and each one detonated on Anguirus's tough skin. The monster howled out in agony as it was nearly tipped off its footing and grey smoke sizzled from its hide. The military force continued to move down the ramp and toward the island grounds until the drivers were forced to stop in their tracks.
A fiery explosion blew off the section of ramp right in front of them. Smoke and flames poured out of the rocky wound while Godzilla came stomping forward. His jaw opened again and prepared to deliver the second attack….
In the Observation Deck, the floor shook again. James picked up the telephone receiver and dialed a few numbers.
"What are you doing?!" Areit hissed.
"The G-Force military was going down that ramp; I need to make sure they're okay!" James answered.
"Godzilla's coming right at out plateau!" Yamane declared as he watched out the window.
"You drove a truck here right?" Areit asked him.
"Yeah," Yamane said.
"Well, come on let's hurry and get out of here!" Areit motioned for the three men to follow her as she ran for the hallway.
"Any answer?" Greg asked James. The scientist shook his head.
"Let's go." He said after hanging up, "We'll know of their fate in a short while anyway."
The four were running down the hallway and to the garage when all of the sudden, the lights on the ceiling went out, leaving them in complete darkness…
Around the Entire World
August 26, 2002
Cities were cast into darkness, electronics were rendered useless, and all forms of communication beyond human speech were impeached. The world-wide blackout may have only lasted for three minutes, but without the use of phones, TVs, or radios to deliver news there was mass panic.
The G-Force Headquarters at Mt. Fuji luckily was able to switch over to an emergency lighting system. But most other places weren't so lucky. Only three minutes after the blackout started all the TVs, radios, projectors, telephones, and cameras were turned back on. But what the electronics now showed was not of this planet.
"Greetings people of Earth!" A pale white man said coldly behind the shade of an odd looking pair of sunglasses. He sat behind a kind of control panel, lined with glowing red lights in odd shaped positions. Behind him was an oval shaped screen which was blank.
The world watched from their living rooms, from the streets, from sports stadiums, from theaters, and many other places as the alien introduced himself.
"We are the race known as the Vortaak, a species who is considered to be one of the most superior in the universe." The screen behind the Vortaak man came on in a crystal clear image of Planet Earth.
"Your civilization may be much higher then the other species on your planet, but I assure you that it is highly primitive." The more the thing talked, the more it became obvious that his lip movements didn't match his speech. He was using some sort of translator. "Your planet, which you refer to as Earth, has caught the attention of my people and we have decided that it will no longer be under your control."
Commander David Masters watched the television in the lounge of the G-Force Headquarters. Standing beside him was his assistant. Masters leaned over and whispered something into his ear. The man nodded and ran off.
"The resources that your planet holds are much too valuable for such a primitive race." The screen showed various oil plantations and forests. "The Vortaak however, will use it to its full potential! But your people are in luck. When my race wants a planet, we usually wipe out the controlling species, but you humans will be used as our helpers instead. Consider yourself lucky and be grateful that we aren't using the full force at our deposits!"
The crew of Mechagodzilla was also watching the world-wide broadcast. Vincent Crador was the only one of the three man crew who wore a snug smile on his face. Instead of seeing this as a potential invasion of mankind, he saw it as an opportunity to put Mechagodzilla into action.
"Any rebellion that you may be plotting as I speak will be severely frowned upon! All Earth inhabitants will agree to do our bidding, or else we will resort to force! Which reminds me; another thing so special about your planet is the kaiju." The screen behind the Vortaak shifted to a film of Godzilla and Anguirus on Monster Island 2.
"Your kaiju are the only things that stood in our way to conquest! But all of them have a special mutation in their brains called M-Base. The Vortaak have long ago discovered a way to control M-Base, and therefore we control your monsters. If you thought an attack from one every two years or so was bad, think again! Because now, all of your cities will be reduced to rubble in a matter of months and the kaiju will counter any rebellion that you humans may put up!"
The screen now showed the moon, the side facing Earth. "And now humans, prepare to face the wrath of the Vortaak!" Like a swarm of black locusts from behind the moon came thousands of ships. They were too far away from the camera showing the image to see their exact details, but they were all moving toward Earth and fast…
Monster Island 2
August 26, 2002
9:15 AM
"That explains everything!" Areit clapped her hands together. The four kaijuologists were standing around a monitor in the Observation Room. They'd gone back as soon as they heard the broadcast.
"The double dreaming and mysterious illness that the kaiju were experiencing, it was all because of M-Base!" She said.
"Why hadn't we found out about M-Base before?" Greg asked as he pulled Areit's arm to try and get her moving faster toward the hall. The group was now running for the parking garage.
"The same reason we haven't found out about Godzilla's radioactive properties! We can't do a biopsy on a kaiju! They're too difficult to kill!"
"We're almost there!" James announced.
"I know you're happy about discovering why the monsters were acting up this past summer," Dr. Yamane said, "But we have bigger things to worry about now! There's an alien invasion happening as we speak!"
"Wait," Areit realized, "All the kaiju were acting this way except for Godzilla, he's remained just like himself!"
"Maybe Godzilla doesn't have M-Base in him." Greg suggested. Suddenly the sound of falling concrete and steel could be heard down the hall, back toward the Observation Room.
"What was that?" Areit asked. She turned around and ran back down the corridor.
"Damn it, no!" Greg cursed. He turned back to Yamane and James, "Get the truck started, I'll go get her."
Areit ran past all the doors until she was back in the Observation Room, but now there was a steady breeze coming through. She looked up; a giant gaping hole was in the ceiling, wires and iron bars hanging down from it. She stepped a bit closer.
Slowly, and almost peacefully, two glowing blue tendrils snaked down from the opening. Areit watched them, entranced by their beauty as the two serpentine things seemed to almost watch her.
"Areit!" Greg came running down the hallway. One of the tendrils darted at him, fusing with his chest. He could feel it withering inside of him, almost like it was searching for something.
But Areit, in front of him, kept her back turned and kept watching the tendril with her two entranced eyes. "Areit help me!" Greg yelled as he struggled to get the tentacle out of him.
The other energy slowly went inside Areit's forehead and she sighed as it did so. It quickly came out and it slowly began to wrap itself around her two smooth legs.
"Areit!" Greg called out again, but it was no use. The thing had her under some sort of hypnosis. Finally, the tendril found Greg's heart and stabbed into it. He had never had a heart attack before, but this sure felt like one. He was weakened to his knees by the pain as blood was slowly drained from his life stream.
Tokyo
August 26, 2002
9:15 AM
The morning sky was blotted with an overcast of grey clouds, painting out the sun. Normally, on a day like today, people would be heading to work. But this day, men women and children were trying to find shelter as air raid sirens wailed throughout the city.
The Prime Minister of Japan had issued a state of emergency and had ordered for the JSDF to be called into action as soon as the Vortaak's broadcast ended.
The clouds above were suddenly burst apart and hundreds of black, disk shaped ships hovered down. Their engines, which sounded like the howling of an eerie wind, drowned out even the air raid speakers. From the bottoms of the ships came a golden light which burst down onto the streets.
Like vacuum cleaners, they moved down each road and if they happened to pick up a citizen in their path, the human would be broken up into particles and sucked up to the ship. Even through the protection of a car roof, no one was safe. Whole crowds moved away from the beams of light, but many people were easily sucked toward the saucers into fates unknown.
This was happening in almost every major city on Earth, from Paris to New York to Moscow to London to Los Angeles. The Vortaak ships patrolled through crowded streets, drawing in the remains of innocent citizens.
The Self Defense Forces were immediately called out, but the ships were also able to suck soldiers through the armor of tanks, rendering land bound vehicles useless. And any aircraft that came their way was instantly destroyed by a turret atop the ship that shot a ray of red energy that cut through the Earth jets like tin foil.
There was nothing that could stop the Vortaak…
Monster Island 2
August 26, 2002
9:18 AM
Greg tried, time and time again to pull the tendril from his heart where it was draining him of his blood. In front of him, he was forced to watch as Areit stood helpless and the tentacle constricted around her body. He was crawling along the smooth floor now, the life draining from his face.
Areit was slowly being lifted up by the tendril and out of the hole in the ceiling. Her beautiful body was broken apart into hundreds of tiny separate particles. The tendril sucked them up, like the other was doing to Greg's heart. Before long Areit was gone and the tendril had disappeared back from which it came.
Greg's head hit the floor as he began to die, slip away into darkness. But just at the last second he heard the cocking of a gun and then the firing of a bullet. The life stream was pumped right back into him in a second. The tendril, now shot in half, squirmed and twisted. A hand grabbed Greg's collar and dragged him back down the hallway.
He looked back to see Dr. Lee Yamane who was holding a pistol in his other hand. He threw the weapon to the ground and slammed a button on the wall. Two heavily enforced security doors began to shut them off from the Observation Room.
The tendril in the room began to shift and morph until it seemed to take the shape of a human being, but the doors shut just before Greg could make it out. "On your feet!" Yamane pulled Greg up. "I didn't see Areit in there; did she take another way out?"
"They took her…" Greg gasped.
Yamane went wide eyed, "Areit!?"
"Those damn things took her!" Greg ran at the closed titanium doors, but Yamane grabbed him and turned him back toward his face.
"Look," He said seriously, "We'll get Areit back later, but for now we need to save out own skins! Now come on, James is getting the truck started right now!"
Tokyo
August 26, 2002
9:20 AM
As the hundreds of Vortaak ships continued to dart around the streets of the huge city, a sign of relief finally came.
A mother and her child were fleeing from an encroaching ray of light. Almost right before it transformed them into particles, the saucer above them exploded, causing the abduction ray to disappear into thin air.
The two looked up to see that a missile had left a trail of smoke in its wake before hitting the ship. Their eyes followed the trail until they rested on something flying in from the west.
"Look mama! It's Kiryu!" The child cried. The giant mech was bulleting across the sky at momentous speeds, firing dozens of exploding missiles into the swarms of Vortaak Ships.
Kiryu's engines went off and it gracefully fell from the clouds, its iron feet landing right on the pavement in front of Tokyo Tower.
In the cockpit sat the mighty ship's crew, all of them dialing buttons on their keyboard. The screen in front of them no longer showed a virtual city, but a very real Tokyo that was filled with night black alien ships.
"All weapons are charged, I've loaded a new set of missiles into the bays and we'll be ready to fight any second now." Benedict reported.
"Good," Kane Locke grinned, "This pitiful excuse for an invasion will be over before it's even begun."
The UFOs outside simultaneously shut off their abduction rays and began to slowly come after Kiryu. The turrets atop the ships shined red as they prepared to fire…all three hundred of them.