Part 3
A Spaceman rushed downstairs to the control room and saluted Goras. "The generator is repaired and fully functional."
"Excellent!" Goras punched his fist into his open palm. "Did Katsura finish replacing the shorted circuits?"
Mogga slapped the panels of the control banks shut. "Yes. We're ready to proceed."
"Summon the others," Goras thrust his finger at Mogga in excitement. "We cross over to the parallel universe tonight!"
The Spacemen strapped on their side arms and changed into their silver uniforms and helmets. They took their posts in the control room. The monitors displayed the Mafune estate in the parallel Earth. Both Godzillas milled about the grounds, waiting.
The wait was over.
"Unleash Anvil," Goras paused to savor the moment, "now!"
#
Back on the tower rooftop, Miki huddled alone under a woolen army blanket. The night air had turned chilly. Floodlights from the ships in the channel panned over the island, and where their lights couldn't reach helicopter gun ships panned their lights from above. It looked like it was going to be a long night.
Then the crickets stopped chirping.
The ground rumbled. She beheld the swirling vortex light. It clawed through the soil of the unkempt yard in shafts. Soon another light, the kind which glowed like brimstone, consumed the radiance of the vortex. A fireball erupted from the ground and ascended into the night sky. The troops and civilians gazed with the horror one would have at the sight of an omen.
"What is it?" Yamashita's voice crackled over Miki's headset. The fireball coalesced into a raging inferno.
"I don't know!" Miki yelled into the speaker, shielding her eyes.
The fireball burst, turning night into day. The energy wave nearly blew Miki off the roof. The Godzillas twisted away from the explosion, shielding their eyes. The people across the channel hid their faces. It was as if God had spoken.
But it was no heavenly father that appeared from the light. Aloft in the sky was King Ghidrah, flapping his golden, bat-like wings. His three heads and twin tails wriggled like vipers. Remnant flames licked off his scales.
#
"Anvil unleashed!" Mogga growled, juiced up on adrenaline.
"Good." Goras licked his lips. He could almost taste victory.
The monitors showed the Godzillas flashing their fins, brewing up to blast Ghidrah with atomic fire.
"All right, Mogga," Goras leered, "give them the Hammer."
"Give them the Hammer," Mogga relayed the order to their subordinates.
The other Spacemen flipped switches and turned dials.
#
While Ghidrah held everyone's attention, a second monster soared across the grounds with the force of a whirlwind and bashed into the Godzillas from behind. They crashed upon the grass and crushed trees under their bodies. The concussion rolled Miki across the roof. Desperately, she gripped the shingles.
"Hammer" landed a stone's throw away from Miki. He was a scaly biped with a pair of wings and a sail stretching from his back. His neck and head arched gracefully like a bird's, tapering to a metal beak. Its hands were like two giant meat hooks. The beast clanged them together in glee.
Showa Godzilla knew this creature well.
It was the space monster Gigan.
Their heads aching, the Godzillas got up. Showa tried to coordinate with Heisei, but the Heisei Godzilla picked his target, the biggest one—Ghidrah.
He let loose his atomic flame, but the beam deflected off of Ghidrah's gilded scales to no effect. Heisei tried again with the same frustrating result.
"No, Godzilla," Mechagodzilla crowed from within his silo, watching the fight. "This Ghidrah is not the bio-engineered Dorat construct you battled in your world." His voice rasped into a spiteful hiss. "This is the real thing!"
King Ghidrah landed beside Gigan and spewed plasma bolts from his mouths. One step…then another…the beams forced Godzilla back. He roared defiantly. Ghidrah merely jingled his alien chirps and slashed away. The arcs danced across Godzilla's legs, chest, arms, face, and neck.
Gigan emitted an electric screech to Ghidrah. He thumped his chest and then shook his claw at Heisei Godzilla. He wanted the "new boy." Ghidrah relented and turned toward the "old timer," who was bounding toward him.
The three-headed dragon flapped up and kicked Showa Godzilla in the face with both heels, sending him tumbling into the trees. Ghidrah then lit up the ground. Leaves puffed to smoke. Bark splintered from the lightning volleys. Godzilla tossed and rolled in the pummeling, trying to regain his footing.
Gigan clanged his hooks together, thumped his sides with his elbows, and then screeched at the "new boy" to attack. Heisei Godzilla brewed up and fired his blue atomic ray across the field. Gigan's hooks crossed before his face blocking the shot. Gigan then swung his arms away and lanced a laser beam from his forehead. The light beam burned like a red-hot poker in Godzilla's chest.
The Spacemen hooted and grunted excitedly as they watched the battle over the monitors.
"Our operation," Mogga clenched his fist, "is succeeding! Hammer and Anvil are decimating the Godzillas! "
"Did you have any doubt?" Goras grinned. He looked up at the monitor displaying Mechagodzilla. "Join them!"
Mechagodzilla swiveled his head toward their video link. "Now? I'm not even in my disguise." He indicated to his titanium-plated body as though he weren't probably dressed for the occasion. "My part doesn't start until after the Godzillas are killed."
"The hour is dark," Goras growled. "The humans won't figure what's going on until morning. There's plenty of time for you to be sprayed in the synthetic flesh."
Mechagodzilla uttered a noise which made him sound like he was clearing his throat. "If you haven't noticed, Goras, one of the stations is conspicuously empty." He referred to Katsura's unmanned post. "I can't function to my full potential without her."
"The sides will be three to two! Use your onboard processor! I want to get this fight over with now!"
"Foresight, Goras! Foresight! I know you well. Let's say we win. You'll become overconfident. You'll think we won't need Katsura and eliminate her. That would be a mistake. I am merely watching out for our best interests, as per my function." Mechagodzilla bowed over the monitor as though he were a good robot minding its master's wishes.
Enraged, Goras kicked his control bank and pointed at the monitors displaying the battle. "Get over there!"
"Get Katsura and I'll go," Mechagodzilla parlayed. "I trust you didn't dispose of her already."
Goras ground his teeth. "Mogga."
"Commander." Mogga clicked his heels and headed upstairs to fetch Katsura.
#
General Aso bit his knuckle as he watched the battle from across the channel. He never imagined Godzilla, two of them no less, would be the frontline troops defending Japan. It was unprecedented. All hope was invested in the two dinosaurs—and the dinosaurs were losing.
Ghidrah pinned Showa Godzilla under an inexhaustible rain of plasma discharges while Gigan sadistically laser beamed Heisei Godzilla in eyes, ears, and mouth. He jeered, thumping his sides with his elbows. If this animal was the best the parallel Earth had to offer, it was indeed ripe for the picking!
Then Ghidrah sensed the presence of Rodan. He even heard the giant pteranodon bellow. He turned around only to find a tiny human girl standing upon a rooftop.
"Made you look!" Miki yelled and flung a shingle at him. She had fooled him with a psychic projection.
Showa Godzilla took advantage of the distraction and spun Ghidrah around and delivered rapid blows to all three of Ghidrah's heads, doubled the space dragon over with a knee to the gut, and for the coup de grâce he did a 360 spin and belted Ghidrah into the woods with the swing of his tail. Godzilla then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and assumed a fighting stance.
Gigan was still blasting away at Heisei Godzilla. Showa noted Gigan's location and let Ghidrah recover. Too eager to even the score, Ghidrah spat another lightning scourge. Showa ducked and rolled out of the way as Ghidrah's plasma beams struck Gigan's back. The space monster hopped and jumped as though touched by a live wire.
Showa popped up onto his feet and saluted Ghidrah for the assist.
In a fog of acrid smoke, Gigan staggered around shaking a hooked claw at Ghidrah, screeching insults. His last insult got pinched to a squeak. Heisei Godzilla grabbed Gigan's throat with his jaws. He hoisted the space monster off the ground rushing him toward the slope. The row of thorny barbs running down the center of Gigan's torso whirred to life like a buzz saw, flaying chunks of meat out of Godzilla's chest. With a roar he shoved Gigan away. He wasn't used to this wildcat type of fighting.
They grappled, Godzilla using his superior weight to bulldoze Gigan over the ridge. Gigan retaliated with blows from his hardened hooks. The ridge collapsed under their weight, spilling them down the hillside. They hit the water below like a thunderclap, rocking the navy ships standing vigil in the channel.
Aso pulled his knuckle from between his teeth. "Excellent move!" He realized the Heisei Godzilla was taking advantage of the fact that Gigan's hooked appendages were useless for swimming.
Gigan sank to the bottom like a rock. Godzilla fired into the channel. Water hissed and bubbled. He kept exhaling the blue ray, scalding Gigan right down to his water-filled lungs. A wave of vapor spread over the channel.
Back at the top of the hill Ghidrah took flight, circled around Showa Godzilla and swooped down on him like a hawk grabbing a rabbit. He flew Godzilla high up into the night sky. The city lights below twinkled like stars. Ghidrah flew high enough for them to taste the clouds. He chirped, Farewell, old friend, and released Godzilla.
Showa was ready for this stunt. He grabbed Ghidrah by the ankle.
Ghidrah flapped wildly and snapped at Godzilla's hands. Godzilla batted the heads away with his free hand, but it was like swatting vipers.
Losing altitude, Ghidrah struggled to stay airborne. Panning searchlights illuminated them through breaks in the cloudbank. Miki shrank back. It appeared as if they were barely hanging in the air above the house!
Ghidrah blasted Godzilla with his plasma bolts and still the Earth monster clung to his ankle.
Finally nature intervened. Dew from the clouds greased their scaly hides. Godzilla's grip slipped. But he was not falling alone. He managed to grab one of Ghidrah's tails. The maneuver caught the gilded dragon off guard. Ghidrah's wings folded back.
And they fell…
Miki laid down flat on the roof and braced herself for impact. The air rustled from their descent, and then they hit the dirt. The reverberation split the driveway, cracked the foundation of the house, and bounced Miki from her hold on the roof.
Showa Godzilla heard her cry out. Still dazed from the fall, he acted on pure instinct, lunging forward out of the impact crater to catch her before she fell. His clawed fingers speared through the tower. He felt something fall into his palm. Was it her? He felt no movement. When the searchlights panned across him he grunted in relief when he saw he did catch her. Miki had merely fainted.
Ghidrah rose from the crater in as much of a daze as Godzilla. Gigan dropped at his feet vomiting steamy water from his insides. He squeaked at Ghidrah he could take the "new kid!"
The two space monsters decided to flee for the stars.
Undaunted, Showa Godzilla tucked in his tail and blasted the ground, using his atomic ray like a jet engine.
Heisei Godzilla reeled around as astounded as the humans. They watched in awe as Showa Godzilla soared like a rocket.
Heisei Godzilla figured if Showa Godzilla could fly, so should he. He blasted the ground only to get a blowback of dirt in his face. He stepped back waving the dust away, growling in protest. How come the other Godzilla can fly and he can't?
#
Back in the control room, Goras issued orders. "We must teleport Ghidrah and Gigan back to our Earth before they get out of range. Once they have a chance to recover we'll renew the attack!"
The Spacemen opened the field.
#
Showa Godzilla caught up with Gigan and swatted Gigan out of the sky with his tail.
Gigan crashed upon the ground. He sputtered in misery. He saw no hope of escape until he spotted the vortex forming over the woods. He took off with Showa Godzilla in pursuit.
#
"Gigan has made it through the vortex," one of the ape aliens called from his post.
"Close the field," Goras ordered. "Hurry!"
His minions shut the field with a moment to spare before Godzilla could fly through.
"We lost control of the space monsters," the Spaceman continued. "Gigan has taken off for the stars. Ghidrah has, too, but in the parallel universe."
Goras didn't answer. He just stared fixedly at nothing.
"Commander?"
"I'm fine," Goras said abruptly.
Suddenly he peeled off his helmet by one of the antennas and beat the controls at his station. Buttons popped off the panel like broken teeth. The antenna snapped and the helmet bounced free from his grip. Goras grabbed a chair and flung it across the room, and then stormed out.
Tense, his subordinates watched him leave and then looked up at the source of their commander's fury, Mechagodzilla.
#
Shindo had been sitting on the bunk in his cell the whole time while the monsters had been fighting. He went from feeling trapped to bored out of his mind.
Then the bolt unlocked and Katsura entered, setting a suitcase and garment bag inside the door. She looked more dressed for action, wearing denim slacks and leather knee-high boots in place of her long dress. She fished Shindo's gun and cell phone out of her coat pocket and handed them back. After Shindo holstered his sidearm and pocketed his phone, Katsura showed him Ichinose's obituary photo.
"You work for the government in your world," she said. "Will you help me find this man?"
"Find him? I've met him." Shindo read the newspaper clipping. "But he doesn't go by the name Akira Ichinose. In my world he's Hiro Takashima. He's an author."
Katsura pensively bit her lip. "Ichinose is a marine biologist."
"Takashima writes textbooks on marine biology. They might be the same man. I assume the person in this photo is the one you were hinting of earlier." Shindo returned the clipping.
Katsura nodded.
Her demeanor had changed since he last spoke to her.
"I'm glad to see you've come to terms with your humanity," he added.
She smirked, reluctant to answer. Typical of the fairer sex, Shindo thought, she can't admit when a man's right.
"I am what I am," she said with a warm smile.
"That's all we need to be," he said for moral support.
"I have to take care of business downstairs," Katsura explained. "Stay here until I get back." Before she left she indicated to her stuff. "And watch my things."
"You want me to stay here and watch your bags?"
"You are a civil servant, aren't you?" Katsura teased.
"Wait a minute." Shindo took her arm. "There's no sense taking on Goras's bunch alone."
"You might be my only hope in finding Ichinose. I'm not going to risk losing you. Besides, this is a family problem."
Shindo released her arm. "I understand."
"Good!"
Shindo and Katsura jumped at the sound of Mogga's voice. The goateed Spaceman stood within the doorframe with a silver laser pistol trained on them. "Katsura is right. Her problems go back a long ways, and Goras wants to discuss them with her." Mogga stepped aside and gestured with the gun for her to exit the cell.
She did so, hesitantly.
"Downstairs," Mogga ordered.
She gave Shindo one last look before she left.
Next, Mogga signaled Shindo to come out.
He exited the cell, hands up, expecting to be frisked of his weapon and phone.
They faced each other in the hall.
"I suppose this is the end," Shindo said. "Do we say our goodbyes now or when I'm in front of the firing squad?"
"Not exactly. Meet a friend of mine."
A mangy paw gripped Shindo's shoulder. It was heavy, muscular, and hard. He turned around and confronted an alien ape that was more gorilla-like than the humanoid types like Mogga—stooped, with his knuckles dragging on the floor, yet massive as a bull. He leered down at Shindo like a child eager to play with a new toy.
"This is Crakis," Mogga introduced. "He's our household executioner. He prefers breaking bones over using guns."
"I guess I won't need a blindfold. May I have an Advil instead?"
"You're not funny, Shindo." Mogga then spoke to Crakis. "Meet me downstairs when you're through."
After Mogga headed down the steps, Shindo spun around and put three slugs into the barrel-chested monkey monster. Crakis grinned, showing a rugged set of incisors. Blood trickled from the bullets holes, but hardly enough to equal a bloody nose.
Shindo aimed for the eye, but Crakis proved faster, swatting the gun from his grasp. The monster's thick nails left gouges in the back of Shindo's hand.
There was no point in trying to go at it with fisticuffs. Shindo smashed a vase over Crakis's forehead and threw a night stand at his feet, causing the ape creature to stumble when he lunged.
Shindo retreated to another room and braced the door with a chair.
Then he had an idea. Since this was a parallel Earth, with any luck, the number to his boss's office should be the same.
Shindo hit speed dial on his cell.
Nothing happened. There was no signal!
"Don't they have cell phones in this dimension?" Shindo muttered.
Out in the hall Crakis began pounding the door.
On the other side of the room was a phone. Shindo tried it, getting a dial tone when he put the receiver to his ear. But there was one catch—the phone was a rotary.
"What is this, the 1970s?"
He cranked the dial. It rolled at an indolent pace while Crakis pulverized the door into scrap.
Finally Shindo reached someone, that is, after Crakis had made ingress and was charging across the room.
Fortunately the phone had a long cord. Shindo dropped back into the bathroom, locking the door. Crakis growled on the opposite side. The door shook as the simian threw its weight against it.
"Chief! This is Shindo!"
"Where are you?" the parallel-world Yamashita replied. "We were about to give you up for dead."
"Funny you should say that," Shindo remarked, recalling the fact that the Spacemen had probably killed the Shindo of this world. "I'm at the old Mafune house on Manazura Island. Hold on!" Shindo set the phone down on the toilet, wrenched free the bathroom countertop and smashed out the window.
Crakis bashed his shoulder through the door, splitting it in two. Blood lust was in his eyes as he grabbed the two halves of the door and wrenched them out of his way.
Retrieving the phone, Shindo climbed out of the window, and up on the roof. "Listen, send men. Send the Army."
"I have a battalion on standby. Just hold tight for fifteen minutes. Anything else you can tell us?"
Shindo kept backing up until the phone cord lost its slack. Crakis by then was climbing up onto the roof.
"Sorry, Chief. Gotta go. I'm at the end of my line!"
#
Katsura confronted Goras in the control room. "Mogga said you wanted to talk to me."
Goras pointed toward the teleportation cubicle. "Go to Mechagodzilla's silo."
Two guards escorted her to the cubicle. They teleported to the silo. The escort remained at the cubicle entrance while she stepped to the middle of the chamber wondering what this was about.
"Where were you this afternoon?" Mechagodzilla asked.
"Is it any of your business?"
The Spacemen and Mechagodzilla stared at Katsura in an uneasy silence.
"That's a funny way of talking." Mechagodzilla spoke cautiously. "We lost a major battle because you weren't at your duty station."
Katsura shrugged.
"You don't seem to be yourself. Mogga searched all over for you and when he found you, you were in Shindo's cell. Why did you go to his cell? Wait…" Mechagodzilla straightened his posture. The cables plugged into his arms clattered together. "I have just monitored a phone call leaving the house. It's the prisoner. He has called for help. Soldiers are on the way!"
"Good!" Katsura headed back to the teleportation cubicle. "I'll wait on the front stoop and let them in."
The guards blocked the cubicle's entrance.
"You stupid short circuit!" Goras yelled at Katsura over the speakers. "Those soldiers will destroy you, too. As far as the humans are concerned there is as much blood on your hands as there is on ours."
"Are you trying to frighten me, Goras? I thought I was supposed to be a cyborg. Cyborg's don't have feelings."
"We built you. We are the only ones who can take care of you. You belong to us."
Katsura spoke in a tone they had never heard before—mature, like someone who knew where she stood. "Bullying and brainwashing works well on someone who is young and vulnerable. I'm not a teenager anymore."
"I'm giving you a chance to cooperate. Don't throw it away."
Katsura bristled. She glared at the video link with the control room. "Goras, I'm only going to tell you once: Get the hell out of my life!"
For a long while the speaker was quiet. Goras seethed. Finally, he spoke. "Have it your way."
The two Spacemen whipped out their guns.
"So anyway, where were you?" Mechagodzilla interrupted to ease the tension.
Goras ordered his troops over the video link to stand down.
"Are you all right?" Mechagodzilla asked. "As I said, you don't seem to be yourself."
Katsura was taken aback. His concern sounded genuine. "Around. Outside. My father's room."
"What were you doing there?" Mechagodzilla sounded fretful.
"Nothing important."
"You've not been upstairs for years. Now suddenly you were. There is a reason. I know. Tell me what you were doing. Now!"
"No!"
Mechagodzilla twitched his head as if he had just been slapped in the face. His voice exploded, sending tremors through the silo walls. "I am your only friend. I'm trying to keep you alive and this is how you treat me? I SHOULD LET YOU BE DESTROYED FOR THIS!"
"If that's what friends do then do it."
The two Spacemen aimed their weapons at Katsura.
"Wait!" Mechagodzilla held out his gleaming, titanium hand. He chuckled. "We're getting excited over nothing. I understand what's happening. Because of our mental link, my sentient nature has had an effect on you, Katsura. Let me assure you whatever feelings you think you have you are drawing from me and interpreting them as your own. In a way I guess you can say I am rubbing off on you. I can only imagine the confusion and the sense of emptiness you're experiencing. For that I apologize." He put his hand to his chest and humbly bowed.
Now Katsura understood what Shindo was telling her. "No. You need me. You've been looking for affection and companionship. Those things help me survive. Now you think they should work for you. You have been studying me, forming a personality compatible with those needs." Katsura slipped her hands into her coat pockets. "It's ironic while I let everyone else dehumanize me you were the only one who saw that I was a person. In a way I should thank you."
"I knew if I put you two together the truth would come out," Goras boasted over the speakers. "We have just enough time to make a couple of adjustments in you Katsura, and you too Mechagodzilla, and when you two are back online you won't be so sentimental. Guards, bring Katsura to the control room."
Suddenly two massive beams erupted like a blast furnace around Katsura. She dropped to the floor covering her head. Two explosions thundered inside the silo. The Spacemen were gone. Vaporized.
Mechagodzilla relaxed from his firing posture. His eye beam cannons still glowed from the discharge of energy.
"You will be safe with me," he assured Katsura.
Without so much as a backward glance, she drew her own weapon and headed for the teleportation cubicle.
"Don't go! I forbid you!" Mechagodzilla pleaded. "Katsura, they'll kill you!"
#
Hiro Takashima sat at the window of his fifth floor apartment, paging through the Science Fiction novel he had authored. The curtains were closed. He didn't want to see the world outside. It wasn't his. In this world there was no record of his birth. Many people he knew from his Earth existed here, too, but back on his Earth they were friends and colleagues. Here they were strangers. He had to rebuild his existence, and since he did it through books he went by his pen name instead of his real one—Akira Ichinose.
Sci-Fi fans raved about his novel, particularly the chapter after the climactic battle when the alien invaders shoot the hero and kidnap the girlfriend. The sense of loss coming off the page was arresting. What they didn't know was that the reason the novel seemed so vivid was because he based his work on his own life.
After he recovered from the blaster wound, he had returned to Mafune's estate armed. He bludgeoned his way through every Spaceman who got in his way and stormed into the control room with a blaster he had grabbed from one of the Spacemen.
She was there. So were the two aliens who had taken her, Goras and Mogga.
"Ichinose," Goras said. "I didn't know marine biologists were qualified to perform rescue missions."
"Hand over your guns," he shouted.
"We don't have any guns," Goras said. "You can fix that by giving us yours."
Mogga chuckled.
It infuriated him that they didn't take him seriously. He had the gun. He had the power. He ordered them to shut up, and then called to her to come with him. She didn't move. Neither did he have a chance to read her reaction. Events moved too fast.
Goras pressed buttons and switches at the control banks. He threatened to shoot if Goras didn't take his hands off the controls.
"You don't have the guts to kill in cold blood," Goras said. "That's why you should have sent soldiers. Mogga."
Ichinose put his sights on Mogga. But all Mogga had to do was turn a dial and a bright swirling light engulfed him. The light made Ichinose feel as though he was being sucked out of reality. In the next instant he found himself standing on a sidewalk in Tokyo, of a Japan that had no Akira Ichinose.
He set the book down on his desk. Now tears began to flow. His anger brought up vivid memories of Goras and Mogga. But the tides of time were washing away the memory of Katsura's face.
#
Katsura knelt down inside the cubicle, reached up and pressed the entry switch. The door slid aside. As she predicted, the Spacemen had set an ambush at the door. Two of them swung into view, firing their guns. They would've hit her in the chest if she had been standing. Instead their laser beams shot over her head.
She blasted them and dove out of the teleportation cubicle and behind the first row of control banks. Energy beams criss-crossed the control room
"Katsura, behind you!" Mechagodzilla called over the video link.
She spun around firing a laser blast at an alien ape trying to flank her.
Goras switched off Mechagodzilla's video link. Hotwired to the system, Mechagodzilla just switched the camera back on.
"Destroy the camera!" Goras yelled.
His last trooper fired up at the camera, which gave away his position. Katsura weaved through the control banks like a cat on the prowl and lasered him from behind.
Goras popped out of hiding. By sheer luck she spotted him in her peripheral vision. There was no time to think. She acted out of instinct, swatting his firing hand to the side as he pulled the trigger. His blaster beam speared the nearest control bank, yielding a resounding boom and a splash of sparks.
Goras was equally swift. He wrenched her wrist. She lost her grip on her gun. It fell to the floor and Goras kicked it across the room.
What he couldn't take from her was Katsura's one unstoppable weapon—her hatred of him. She would not quit until she repaid him for the years his people had taken from her.
Katsura threw her shoulder into his gut, knocking the wind out of him as his back hit the concrete wall. His gun fell from his grip, right within her reach. Goras wrapped his arm around her neck. He unleashed his hatred for her, for corrupting Mechagodzilla, for unraveling his whole operation. He swung her side to side, slamming her into the control banks.
The blows they exchanged would've crippled the finest fighters, but their mutual hate didn't allow them to feel anything. It was like one inferno trying to extinguish the other.
"Give up!" Goras tightened his chokehold. "I have a reason to live! You don't!"
Katsura grabbed his ankle and pulled his foot out from underneath him. He slammed the back of his head, stunning him for an instant—all the time she needed to grab one of the guns from the floor.
Goras gnashed his teeth at the site of the laser pistol. "Go ahead. Pull the trigger. Shooting me won't be enough. You won't get satisfaction."
"You think so?" She shot him.
Katsura took a breath. All around her the Spacemen were dead. Yes, she felt satisfied. She holstered the gun into her inside coat pocket.
"They're all yours, Father."
#
Shindo ducked back into the house through a skylight and retrieved his pistol. He was grateful Mafune's home was large. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to ditch Crakis.
Army trucks rolled up the driveway. Their headlights beamed through the windows.
Yamashita's men had arrived.
This was going to be a mixed blessing. Shindo needed the backup but he couldn't afford to be caught. They'll think he was their Shindo.
He ran downstairs, to the mirrored door. While he waited for the door to slide out of his way, Mogga leapt out of the shadows. He snarled in Shindo's ear, eager to win their rematch. Shindo threw him off his back and aimed his pistol.
Mogga chopped the gun out of his, punched him the stomach, and slammed him into the wall.
Shindo gasped "Aw!" from the blow to the stomach and "Oof!" when he hit the wall.
They traded punches.
The alien ape-man struck the secret service agent in the face with the flat of his hand. Shindo fell back through the doorway, onto the floor. He was losing ground, not gaining. The only good thing was that he fell upon his gun.
However, Mogga now had the space to reach for his holster.
Shindo didn't have so much as a heartbeat to calculate how he was going to do this. Just as Mogga drew and triggered his laser Shindo spun, grabbed, and fired.
For a moment both gunmen stood poised. Then Shindo slumped, gripping his side.
But as for Mogga, blood dribbled down his silver uniform from his throat. He dropped like a felled tree.
Then Yomo swung open the metal door at the top of the stairs. "Shindo! You're alive!"
Shindo didn't reply. The man at the top of the stairs was his friend in body and soul. Yet in terms of time and space they were strangers.
He couldn't tell Yomo the truth. How was a man supposed to react when he's told his friend is dead, and the person telling him looks just like his friend?
It would be cruel.
Shindo ducked through the mirrored door.
"Wait!" Yomo called from the other side, his voice swelling with concern.
Shindo hated himself for shutting the door in his friend's face. There just wasn't a good alternative.
He ran down to the control room in the basement and locked the auxiliary door.
"You've been hit!" Katsura tossed him a healing pad from the Spacemen's first aid kit mounted on the wall. "Press that against the burn. It'll kill the pain."
While he applied the pad, she positioned him in the middle of the room. "Mechagodzilla is trying to stop us from crossing over to your world. I can block him for a few seconds but I can't stop him from following us."
"Better hurry," Shindo urged her. "The army's right behind me."
She finished the sequence to execute teleportation and joined him in the center of the room.
Mechagodzilla glared at them from the overhead monitor as he ripped the cables from his arms.
Then the mirrored door exploded. Soldiers stormed into the control room.
The swirling vortex transported Shindo and Katsura back to his universe in the middle of a briefing Sayoko was giving to members of General Aso's staff. "These instruments seem to be an anchor point between the parallel Earths. At times these panels will light up as though someone is operating the corresponding controls in the other Earth…uh…like now!"
Shindo and Katsura appeared, looking worse for wear after their fight with the Spacemen.
Sayoko gaped.
Before she and the staff could barrage him with questions, Shindo herded everyone upstairs and out of the house. The sky was showing signs of first light. Sitting on the front step was Miki holding a cold compress to her head. Beside her was Yomo—his Yomo.
"Shindo!" Yomo jumped to his feet. "Where were you?"
They clasped hands. Shindo felt grateful, so very grateful to be home and seeing his friends alive and well.
"Listen up," he said. "Everyone head for the channel. Stay as far away from us as possible. We have a war machine hot on our heels and it's after her," Shindo pointed to Katsura.
Aso's men got into their staff cars.
"What are you going to do?" Yomo asked.
"Run for starters," Shindo said.
Yomo slapped his car keys into Shindo's hand.
"What's this?" Shindo asked.
"A head start," Yomo said.
Katsura hugged Yomo and kissed his cheek in gratitude.
Out in the grounds the vortex began to swirl.
Shindo and Katsura hopped into Yomo's car as Miki, Sayoko, and Yomo sought cover in the house.
Mechagodzilla soared out of the vortex, flying over the estate via the jets in his legs. With the pedal to the floor Shindo headed for the Pacific coast, twisting around the trees felled by the monsters during their battle. Mechagodzilla flew overhead and landed in their path. He dropped the plate cover to his chest laser and discharged a jagged light ray right in front of the car. Shindo swerved. The beam traced around the vehicle in a circle of fire.
Shindo skidded the car to a halt.
Katsura got out of the car. He exited, too, but she signaled him to stay put.
The giant robot's footfalls clanged as Mechagodzilla approached them and stopped. He stared down at Shindo, his eyes glowing bright, primed to fire.
Shindo held up his hands to show he wasn't about to interfere.
"Don't harm him!" Katsura ran toward Mechagodzilla.
The towering cyborg powered down his eye lasers and turned toward Katsura, looming over her. "I will not allow you to run away from me. Now I concede I am not complete. But neither are you. We need each other."
"For what?" Katsura spread her hands imploringly. "Do you still plan on becoming a hero?"
"We are born of technology which is alien to this world. Who will take care of us? We are misfit machines you and I."
"You're wrong," Katsura shook her head. "I may seem to be a cyborg, but I'm not. I'm a human being. Humans can replace their hands, their hips and knees, even ventricles in their hearts, but that doesn't change the core of who they are. Even though the cybernetics in my body is more sophisticated, the principle is the same. They replace a broken body. They don't replace one's soul."
Miki, Yomo, and Sayoko came back out of the house to see what was going on. They marveled at Mechagodzilla. They had never before seen a kaiju speak.
Mechagodzilla at last admitted the truth: "I cannot maintain my—soul—as you put it without a master copy. I like having a personality, its endless variables. You must stay with me. I need you."
"What do you expect? Are we supposed to get a little cottage and move in together?"
Mechagodzilla didn't reply.
"Answer me!"
Mechagodzilla still didn't speak.
"See?" Katsura said. "You know as well as I it's impossible for us to stay together."
"And you know better than anyone what it's like to be lonely!" Mechagodzilla thrust an accusing finger at her. His voice became shrill with desperation and rage. It echoed across the whole island. "How dare you force another to live in such misery!"
"I have my life to live. If you are a person as you say you are go back to where you came from. Fulfill your own dreams. Just don't include me in them."
"Then you leave me no alternative." Mechagodzilla clenched his fist. "I shall force you to stay with me since you won't do so willingly."
"And I will die in your grip. Go away. Please! Or you will leave me no alternative."
Mechagodzilla unclenched his fist. "Don't say that! Just don't abandon me. Just…don't!"
Katsura sighed, exasperated. "You were built not born. You can't have a soul installed like a new hard drive. It can't be accessed, downloaded, encrypted, or imitated. Either you have one or you don't. Spiritually, Mechagodzilla, you do not exist." She shrugged. She had nothing left to say. "I'm sorry."
Mechagodzilla gripped his titanium-armored chest and swayed as though he were about to be sick. Where was he going to go? What was he going to do? He needed another "master copy", a companion to protect him from loneliness.
He looked to the one he was most familiar with, his old enemy, Showa Godzilla.
Godzilla scowled at him. A low growl rumbled in his throat.
Mechagodzilla looked down to Showa Godzilla's new friend, the psychic Miki Saegusa.
She stared at him as though she were looking at someone who was emotionally ill.
He then turned to the people watching from the channel—the hearts and minds he had hoped to win over. These were the same people who embraced the Godzillas with their cheers and applause. Now, at the sight of his riveted machine face, with its features constructed in a permanent snarl, they cowered away from the edge of the docks.
Mechagodzilla turned full circle to Katsura, his last hope, his only hope. He hung his head in a beseeching manner, pleading for sympathy.
She wouldn't look at him. Instead she closed her eyes and concentrated.
Mechagodzilla reacted with a start when his hand, seemingly under its own volition, rose. Katsura was using the controller inside her to force him to point his finger rockets at his head. She was trying to end his existence.
"Stop! Not this way!" he bleated. "It's not right!" The hand kept inching its way up, raising the missiles on target. "Leave me be and I'll leave you be! I swear!" His voice grunted, struggling to countermand Katsura's directive. "Someone, please! Stop her! Don't let me die!" He threw his head back and let out a horrid, resounding wail. Electric arcs flickered from the seams in his head as circuitry sizzled and popped within. The lights went out of his eyes and he slumped forward. Smoke poured out of the ventilation grill in his neck. He hung there in that stance, arms dangling from his shoulders like a limp puppet.
Katsura ran back to the car and Shindo drove them back to the house to pick up Yomo, Miki, and Sayoko.
"Jump in!" Shindo jutted his thumb toward the back door of the car.
"What's the hurry?" Yomo asked. "Its CPU must be fried."
Katsura shook her head. "We were mentally linked. All he did was destroy the link. He's rebooting now. When he's done he won't recall us. All he's going to see are targets and function accordingly."
"She's right," Miki concurred. "I sensed the psychic connection between you. Anyone else would rather lose their life than their humanity. Mechagodzilla chose to sacrifice his humanity to save his life."
"You lost me," Yomo said. "Can you explain that all over again, but slower?"
"Let's roll!" Shindo revved the motor as a hint they needed to go.
Once everyone piled in back, Shindo peeled out of the driveway. He used the dashboard GPS to select a location for a pickup and phoned for a chopper from the mainland.
Suddenly Mechagodzilla's eyes lit. Its posture straightened, servos whirring. The toothy jaws split and emitted a harsh, grating cry.
Mechagodzilla was back on line.
Showa Godzilla roared to Heisei to attack.
The instant Mechagodzilla detected Showa Godzilla it knocked him down with a pulverizing fusillade of rockets from its left hand; and launched a second fusillade at Heisei Godzilla. Its chest plate dropped. Its mouth opened. It fired all the energy weapons concealed about its person. Laser beams of various colors and intensities pierced the black clouds of smoke created by the warheads. Within the Godzillas tossed and turned. Their cries of pain were barely audible over the din of explosions and lasers crackling through the air.
There was no respite until Mechagodzilla's sensors detected the temperature of its weapons exceeding tolerance level. The machine ceased fire and blasted off into the air, blowing gray exhaust from the soles of its feet.
While the smoke prevented the struggling Godzillas to see where it was going, Mechagodzilla's scanners allowed it to see them. It landed with a heavy clang behind Showa Godzilla, grabbed his tail and spun him around. The swish of his body through the air fanned away the smoke. Mechagodzilla released Godzilla's tail letting him soar right into his Heisei double. Both animals tumbled over each other and on top of the old Mafune house.
Mechagodzilla emitted a gratified sounding screech and stomped toward them in clanging footsteps.
Then the machine monster stopped. The behavior of Heisei Godzilla registered as being bewildered by the amount of punishment he sustained, while the behavior of the other adversary, the one Mechagodzilla already possessed an extensive data file on, didn't match the correct parameters. He was carrying on, squealing more than he should. This indicated a trap.
Mechagodzilla's moment of calculation was the window of opportunity Showa Godzilla needed. He belted Mechagodzilla with a blast of his atomic ray and then hopped back to his feet. Covered with open wounds, he wiped the blood from his eyes and charged.
#
Shindo made it to the pickup site where a chopper was waiting. Yamashita hopped out of the copter and greeted him and Yomo like sons. Over the last two days he had been worried sick about their welfare.
"Thanks, Chief," Yomo said. "Normally you say hello to us with a harrumph."
"I do not!" Yamashita harrumphed.
Shindo and Yomo looked at each other, shrugged, and let it slide.
"Who is this?" Yamashita asked when he noticed the one stranger in the group.
"Katsura Mafune," Shindo put her arm around her. "Daughter of Dr. Shinzo Mafune of the parallel Earth."
"I thought I recognized the family resemblance." Yamashita took her hand. "When I worked in the field I was assigned as a bodyguard to Dr. Mafune. I understand the Mafune of my world was not the same man as your father. It's just that I admired him greatly."
"Did you?" Katsura took Yamashita's words to heart.
"He was a great man, like your father, I'm sure."
"Yes." She raised her chin proudly. "My father was a great man."
The helicopter took off. Manazura Island now belonged to the monsters.
Showa Godzilla twisted Mechagodzilla's right arm behind the machines back while Heisei Godzilla gripped Mechagodzilla's left in his jaws.
Unable to pull itself free, Mechagodzilla spun its head, discharging his force field. The blue cylinder of energy repelled both Godzillas off its arms. Mechagodzilla kicked Showa over the hillside and confronted Heisei Godzilla.
Showa rolled into the fishing village on the coast. This was just the break he was looking for! He split the power lines and gripped the livewires. Electric current surged through his body. His fins flared into a fiery spectacle.
Mechagodzilla hissed resonantly and poised to fight Heisei Godzilla.
Heisei could tell the machines he had fought were piloted by humans by the slow, clumsy manner in which they moved. This machine fought like an animal yet it had no scent or anything to indicate it breathed the breath of life. To Heisei Godzilla, this Mechagodzilla was an abomination.
He bit the metal monster. When his teeth didn't sink in he clamped down on another part of the titanium body, determined to find a weak point.
Mechagodzilla twisted his arm and cuffed him across the head, back, neck, wherever it could get a good angle as Godzilla writhed in its iron grip. It hissed its grating shriek in a mocking tone.
Godzilla shoved the berserker away and fired his atomic ray.
By then, Mechagodzilla's weapons had cooled. It counterattacked with the beam weapon from its mouth. The two rays hit head on. In a show of strength both animal and machine kept pouring their energies into their rays. In increments Godzilla was proving the stronger. Then Mechagodzilla locked its gaze with Godzilla's and fired its eye beams.
White hot pain shot through Godzilla's skull. He staggered back.
Mechagodzilla leveled its missile-launching hands, dropped the chest plate cover, all its weapons locked on target.
Godzilla still ached from the last drubbing he had taken. The urges between fight and flight vied for dominance. His excited state awakened within him a remnant of the life force he had absorbed from the Rodan of his world. In his mind's eye he could see the diminutive pterosaur spread its wings, he could hear its cry.
Miki gasped. She watched the fight from the helicopter window. "Fire Rodan is back!"
"Didn't Godzilla absorb Fire Rodan when they fought our Mechagodzilla," Shindo asked.
Miki nodded. "Yes, but Fire Rodan's spirit has not forsaken him."
Mechagodzilla's eye beams had blinded Godzilla, but Rodan's spirit promised to guide him.
Godzilla regained his footing. Red lightning crackled from his fins as he fired his atomic ray. It blazed like the sun and exploded off of Mechagodzilla's space-titanium hide. Mechagodzilla staggered back, spitting sparks from its riveted seams. Heisei Godzilla inhaled and spewed a second burst of his super-heated flame. It boomed off its armor. The titanium plates rattled loose. Mechagodzilla could not detect where the monster suddenly acquired that kind of power. Time to leave. It ignited its VTOL rockets. It barely got off the ground only to be caught in an invisible force.
Showa Godzilla had crested the summit. He had used the current from the power lines to turn himself into a living magnet. He drew in his fists as though he were reining in Mechagodzilla with a lasso. Mechagodzilla struggled for altitude only to be pulled down to the ground. Showa grunted to Heisei to finish it.
Heisei Godzilla roared in acknowledgment then turned toward Mechagodzilla, the red fire blazing over his back. He blasted off one arm, inhaled, and then blew off the other. The limbs crashed at Mechagodzilla's feet. Mechagodzilla's cry sputtered. Godzilla swung his beam low, cutting through the legs. Mechagodzilla's torso collapsed upon the ground. Finally together, Godzilla and Godzilla fired. What remained of the machine monster, twitching and sputtering, ignited into a thunderous fireball. Glowing bits of hot metal and circuitry rained down out of the rising column of smoke.
Mechagodzilla was no more.
The helicopter had landed across the channel in enough time for Katsura to get out and witness Mechagodzilla's destruction. She found it poignant as well appropriate to see her last tie to the Spacemen brought to an end at the start of a new day.
"Come on," Shindo urged. "Yamashita said he can cash in on a few favors with city hall in Tokyo. It shouldn't take long to find out if our author is your marine biologist."
Miki and Sayoko met up with General Aso as he and his staff came out of his command tent, jovial over the outcome. The General loomed over Miki. He was a head taller and twice as wide.
"Is that the end of the alien menace?" he asked.
"Shindo said on the helicopter a lot of the aliens had been killed," Miki said. "The army in the Parallel Earth is overrunning their base as we speak. They're finished."
"I'm glad to hear it. The press is looking for a statement. Excuse me."
"Wait a minute!" Miki stepped into his way. "The aliens are gone. But aren't we back to square one? I mean," she cleared her throat for emphasis, "what about those two?" She indicated to the two Godzillas on Manazura Island.
Catching her meaning, General Aso glowered at her. "Don't be difficult, Saegusa-san." He strode off with his staffers to speak to the press.
Showa Godzilla decided it was time to go. The vortex portal Mechagodzilla had opened needed to be closed before someone unwittingly stepped through it. He showed Heisei Godzilla a gesture of camaraderie he had learned from the android Jet Jaguar. He took Godzilla's hand in his and gave it a hearty shake. Heisei Godzilla didn't understand.
Perhaps someday he would.
Showa Godzilla grunted to Heisei: This is your world. Take care of it.
He turned to leave.
"This is goodbye," Miki said to Sayoko. "Showa is going home."
The word spread through the crowd. People waved, calling out, "Sayonara!"
Showa Godzilla gallantly stopped with one foot through the vortex and held up his paw in farewell and acknowledged Miki especially with a nod.
Miki wiped a tear from her eye. She would never see him again. Friendships were too short, like life itself. "Goodbye, Godzilla!" she cried to be heard over the other voices. "I'll miss you!"
Showa Godzilla passed through the vortex. On the other side he roared at the soldiers to clear away from the Mafune house. When they were far enough away he set the building aflame, destroying the alien machinery within. The vortex winked out. The door between the two worlds was sealed.
#
At Hiro Takashima's apartment, the subway rattled by outside. There were an increasing number of honking horns as the afternoon traffic thickened. Hiro considered shaving and taking a shower. On the other hand, why? He had a meeting planned with his editor for Saturday, which was a couple of days away. In the mean time he didn't plan on seeing anyone, and he didn't want to, although sometimes he had an inkling that he should get cleaned up just in case he'd run into someone he'd want to talk to.
Such an inclination he dismissed because nothing of the sort happened. It was just hope trying to assert itself.
Then the doorbell rang.
He answered and was taken aback to see the man he had met at the airport. What got his hackles up was that this person was with another man, and they both exuded an air of authority—police officer type of authority.
"I'm Shindo Yamaguchi. This is my partner Yomo Kuta. You may remember me from the airport."
Hiro said he did.
"We're with the National Security Service." Shindo and Yomo presented identification. "We've been looking into your background," Shindo continued, "and we found some anomalies."
"Oh?" Hiro said. His guard went up.
"For instance, we've found no record of your birth or education, and your tax records only go back two years. It's become necessary to verify your identity."
"My identity is that much of a concern that a couple of secret service men have to be sent to my door?"
"Actually," Shindo said, "we should clarify. We're not here on official business. It's more freelance."
"Freelance," Yomo concurred with a nod.
"We're working for a—um—client. Wouldn't you say, Yomo?"
Yomo nodded again. "Absolutely."
"Who is your client?" Hiro asked, losing patience.
Shindo stood aside to let Katsura step into view. Hiro's hand shot up to his stubbly face.
"Ichinose, I'd recognize you anywhere!" Katsura threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him hard.
Ichinose wanted to reunite with her so badly and now that the miracle had happened all he could think about was how he must smell like a sweaty sock.
Katsura laughed with a playful chime to her voice and rustled his greasy hair. "Look at you! You're a sight."
She pressed her hands against his chest to get him to step back so she could come in.
Shindo motioned to Yomo with his thumb it was time for them to leave and closed the door. Their work was done.
Hiro, or rather, Ichinose forgot about the secret agents. He was focused on Katsura. After resigning himself to a slow death by solitude, it took almost a minute of stunned silence to pass before his addled brain could come up with something to say.
"How did you…?" he started to say.
"Same way as you," she said. "Teleportation."
"But the Spacemen…"
"All dead. Here." Katsura drew the silver laser pistol from her coat. "A souvenir."
Ichinose finally smiled. "I've got one of those." He opened a drawer and brought out the pistol he had with him when Mogga had sent him over to this parallel world.
"I'll paint mine pink," Katsura said. "Then we'll have his and hers ray guns."
Ichinose tapped her gun with his as though he were toasting with a champagne glass. It was to their new beginning. Two years had gone by since he had a chance to pick up from where they had left off. Life was what you make of it. Ichinose was going to make it worth the wait.
#
Miki remained at the docks, sitting atop a stack of crates long after most people had gone home. The show was over, so to speak, even though Godzilla, their Godzilla, still milled around the destroyed Mafune estate, scraping at the ruins with his foot. He seemed to be having second thoughts on whether or not the events of the last two days had been real. In that Miki sympathized.
Nevertheless, Baby Godzilla ought to be at peace now that the human surrogate mother who cared for him at birth was safe. That was the only reason why Godzilla came back. His purpose accomplished he turned from the ruins and roamed toward the ocean side of Manazura Island.
Shindo and Yomo joined Miki at the docks in time to see Godzilla go.
"Do you think there is good in our Godzilla like the other one?" Yomo asked Miki.
"Yes," she said. Miki concentrated, searching deeper into Godzilla's thoughts. Her expression gained confidence. "Yes, I believe there is."
The End