GODZILLA
THE ULTIMATE DUELS

Disclaimer: Godzilla and other characters are copyright Toho Co. Ltd.
I own only my original characters.

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Chapter 1
The New Project

Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii; June 20th, 2011

Everything seemed quiet and peaceful in the little town of Lahaina at the west coast of Maui, the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. The summer had just "begun" there, as the local people would say. And it was easy to say that in Lahaina, since the town was situated on the "dry side" of Maui. Lahaina was one of the most popular tourist attractions, especially at this time of year. All the people got what they came there for: beaches, beautiful sunsets, late night Hawaiian dance shows, etc.

But, unexpectedly, all that was about to change. A strange light suddenly appeared in the late night. Wherever the people were, in their homes or on the streets, they all started to look up to the sky. One of these people was a 15-year-old girl with blue-green eyes and blonde hair. She emerged from her house right by the seashore, looked up and immediately saw the bright light in the sky. She didn't seem surprised at all. She just kept looking at the object with a neutral look on her face.

The light was approaching from the north-west. It kept going in a straightforward direction until it reached Haleakala, the younger, eastern volcano of Maui, where it stopped and suddenly disappeared...

Atlanta, Georgia, USA; June 21st, 2011

It was a warm and beautiful morning in the city of Atlanta. It was nearly 9 o'clock, and the streets were already full of cars with people going to work. All that noise could be heard in the apartment buildings downtown. It was all too easy for the noise to wake up people who still wanted to sleep.

One of these people was Jim Hudson, the brown-haired, green-eyed son of the EDF Lieutenant. He was born on June 1st, 1996, so he had just turned 15. He had lived in Atlanta for his whole life with his father. He saw his mother only when she had some time free from work in Japan, so she could visit her family. Jim was very athletic, he loved to do all kinds of sports. So it was not surprising that he loved the Physical Education classes the most in school. As for the other classes, he was average. Of course, like his mother, he was a little interested in monsters.

Jim took a shower right after he woke up. That helped him to get rid of all feelings of fatigue. He returned to his room after getting the morning papers. His cellphone rang. He picked it up with a yawn.

"Yeah?" he said.

"Are you awake?" asked the voice.

"Lisa?"

The caller was Lisa Ward, Jim's friend from school. This brunette could sometimes be quite a pain, since she liked to choose the weirdest times to call. She and Jim had been friends since the 5th grade. Both of them were often teased and bullied for their friendship. They tried not to care. But it did raise some tension between them sometimes.

"Yeah, I'm awake. What is it?" Jim asked, feeling a bit bored.

"Have you heard about that UFO?" Lisa asked enthusiastically.

"Huh?" Jim asked in surprise. "UFO? What are you talking about?"

Lisa gave a sigh and said: "It's all over the news! The TV, the Internet, the papers..."

"OK, OK, I get it. So what's up with this thing?"

"Well, all of a sudden this...light just appeared in Hawaii and then disappeared", Lisa said. There was a little moment of silence, then she continued: "Oh, please don't tell me you haven't heard about it!"

"Well, not until now", Jim answered sarcastically. "But what's the big deal anyway? Things like that happen all the time. For example, there are still monsters out there."

"Yeah, but I've got this feeling that this is gonna be a totally different thing."

"Ah, come on. There are more interesting stuff than that."

"Like what?"

"Like that 'maniac' who wants to bring the Monster Resurrection Project to the ground", Jim said while looking at an article on a paper. The headline said: "Hostility at monster site".

It all happened on an island in the Ogasawara trench where Anguirus, Rodan and the other monsters had been transported to. The EDF had established a research center, much like the earlier EDF Museum, where they contained the monsters and studied them. The final goal of the Monster Resurrection Project was something special. The EDF wanted to find a way to take control of the monsters, so they could use them if new monster attacks would occur. The decision about this had raised tensions between Japan and almost every other nation in the world, but every time they found a way to cooperate.

The project got resistance from the regular people too. One man was brave enough to take a boat and go all the way to the island, which had been named Monster Island. As he was approaching the island he got warnings to turn back, but he didn't listen. He came ashore and right away "attacked" the site by throwing fireworks near the fence surrounding the research center. In the end he got arrested.

Tokyo, Japan; June 21st, 2011

In the new EDF Command Center, the demonstrator man was sitting in an interregation room with nothing but a table, and a single door. The door opened, and Lieutenant Hudson entered the room with a pile of papers in her hand. She sat down on the other side of the table, facing the man. She put the pile on the table and then took a paper sheet in front of her.

"All right. Tell me your name", she asked the man.

"Hideo Kida", answered the man.

She wrote it down and continued: "Let's get to the point, shall we? How did you gather enough bravery to do something so foolish like going to Monster Island?!"

"When you want to speak out against something, you can do anything in order to be heard. I think that's pretty obvious, isn't it?" Kida said.

Susan grinned at him and said: "There are more peaceful ways to do that."

"But they don't work anymore! We aren't living in the past, but in the present! You can't expect to hear any 'miraculous' speeches like the one from Martin Luther King! The world in which we're living today is hazardous. My God, you can't even trust the EDF anymore!"

"And why's that?"

"You fools didn't do anything those few years ago! You let Godzilla live!"

"So it would've been better if he had just killed us right there on the spot?"

There was a moment of silence until Kida spoke again: "Well... At least you could've done something when he was confused as Minilla stood there."

"All right, we're getting off the subject here! Do you have any excuse why you went to Monster Island?"

"I just needed to stop your project. Your idea of controlling those monsters and using them for defense is ludicrous! What if you make a mistake and suddenly they're attacking us again? You haven't even thought about that, have you?"

"For your information, yes. But we are still willing to take the chance and go on with the project. Now, do you have anything else to say?"

"Actually yes. I think now I have another excuse for trying to sabotage your project. I assume you've heard about the UFO in Hawaii?"

Susan gave a quick nod and asked: "What does it have to do with anything?"

"I saw it there. I saw that very same light above Monster Island as I was approaching it."

Susan didn't say anything. She only had a confused look on her face. "Could he have a point?" she wondered in her thoughts.

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Author's notes

The character of Lieutenant Susan Hudson is dedicated to actress Shelley Sweeney, who is perhaps best known from Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1993), in which she played the MG co-pilot, also named Susan.

Hideo Kida is named after a character called Kida (played by Jun Hamamura) from Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974), another movie from Toho.

As most Godzilla fans know, in Destroy All Monsters (1968), Monster Island (or Monsterland, as it was called in that movie) was situated in the Ogasawara trench.