Chapter Two

It was a standard rule that an army's plans and attack strategies be kept secret even from itself. Aside from being a standard rule, it was also just common sense; the fewer people that know what the plan is, the less likely the enemy is to find out for themselves. What was happening now was very much an exception to that rule in that majority of the global community was aware of the current plan to use the Dimension Tide against King Ghidorah. It could be done because despite the fact that King Ghidorah was clearly an intelligent being, there was of course no way that he could know what the humans were bringing against him, even if it was broadcast around the world. It was done because the Secretary General had decided to make the existence of DT and the plan to use it public in hopes of boosting flagging morale.

The revelation had had mixed results. Hawks felt their hopes rise in knowing that they had an ultimate weapon that could win the day; doves felt despair at the idea that such a horrific thing would used. The majority of people, however, were caught in between those two viewpoints in that while they (barely) feared the DT more than they did King Ghidorah, they also knew that it they didn't use it, what would become of them? That was the world mood concerning this and many just hoped that they would survive long enough to contemplate their fears.

All over the world, people were on the edge of their seats and listening to any report on the coming assault. From the sovereign nation of Vatican City, the Pope called on all Christians to pray for the success of the attack. In America, the President proclaimed himself the architect of this grand design. Across the globe, people tried to understand why there no other option left them yet it was only in Japan that the people truly knew why it was that Santos had made his choice and why they wished there had been another. Japan especially so in that it was in nearby China that Dimension Tide would be used—at the gates of Beijing to be precise.

At the gates of Beijing, it was cold at the miserable stone tower that one Chinese soldier had been stationed at, cold and cramped. However, he didn't complain; he knew that a soldier doesn't complain but instead grins and bears it and follows his orders as best he can. For what felt like the millionth time, he walked to the edge of the parapet and looked through his night vision binoculars across the dry, darkened, green and brown landscape that was the eastern lowlands. (However, the night vision meant that everything looked green and various shades thereof.) It was a good vantage point there in the mountains; that was why Emperor Chin had begun the Great Wall there all those millennia ago.

The Chinese soldier looked across the thousands of miles of the Wall that snaked across the mountains, seemingly to infinity through the night. He did that and remembered how it had been built with the blood and tears of his ancestors by an unforgiving ruler but for thousands of years had been like a mighty dragon guarding its beloved land. It was also a marvel of engineering and design and sheer determination, one boast even claimed that the unaided eye could see it from the moon. It was then that the soldier recalled another claim of the Great Wall.

It was the claim of how the bodies of those that had died building it were inside; some even said that disobedient workers had been buried alive. Our soldier kept reminding himself that the story wasn't true, that historians were right in saying that if that had happened, and that decaying bodies would have caused the Wall to collapse. Yet seeing that he and the rest of the People's Liberation Army was up against King Ghidorah, he couldn't really be faulted for feeling that.

The Japanese soldier at his side turned around to face him. "Are you feeling all right?"

The Chinese nodded and weakly said; "I am feeling well, thank you. How are you feeling?"

The Japanese Private didn't take his eyes away from the vast armies assembled from China, Japan, South and even North Korea, Russia, Australia, the Philippines and beyond on the fields before the Wall. Laid across the field, were men and machines and artillery and all manner of armored vehicles. They were legion because there were many of them. (It would have felt safer if MOGUERA were there, but it was busy with Megaguirus in Canada. If worse came to worst, however, Star Falcon could just reach orbital flight and reach China in less than an hour.)

On seeing all this, the observer said, "I may have been part of the JSDF's Anti-Megalosaur Force but I never imagined that I'd be doing something like this."

The Chinese soldier turned his back to the field and looked back to his comrade on the tower of the Wall. "It will work out for the best friend. After all, with the Monster Wars on, we must expect the unexpected."

The Japanese soldier wondered. "How do you feel about the Dimension Tide?"

His fellow observer blandly responded. "The people of your country have made a weapon that might well be able to end this war with one stroke; it is proof of mankind's ingenuity and of Japan's technological prowess."

But, thought the Chinese soldier, with all the forces here, we're just drawing a snake and adding feet to it with that piece of stolen Mysterian technology. And why the hell does it have to be Chinese soil, eh?

After a cursory scan to see if anything had changed, the observers looked out to see an Australian army chaplain offering prayers to Australian and Filipino troops. They strained their ears and heard the chaplain say that just as there was a time for peace, there was also a time for war and that it was by their arms that God would "deliver us from evil." As a boy, our Chinese observer had been told that some men pray for a miracle while heroes fight for one; in others words, he was a godless atheist. That brought to memory two things. One was that whoever came up with that saying about miracles was a total idiot in that if he said that, then he clearly didn't believe in miracles at all. The other thing recalled was the justification given for prayer all through the Monster Wars, especially in the terrible recent months: we can at least save our souls.

The observing soldiers then looked through their binoculars and saw blue and white energy beams shoot across the sky; if they weren't mistaken, those planes belonged the White Heron Squadron, Japan's elite fighter group. With them were DFE Type 93 Maser Attack Planes. At that, the two men gasped and called headquarters because what they had seen could only mean one thing; King Ghidorah was coming.

But a few miles away in Beijing, overlooking Tiananmen Square, a certain band was listening intently to these reports from the Great Hall of the People. This was the headquarters to which the two soldiers had reported; however, this band at HQ was alone because the city had been completely evacuated. This had been done for fear that the whole city would be massacred, not just the Square, if the DT failed. As for this band, at a long table facing a large screen with pictures from the front and with technicians with computers at their sides, the leaders of China and beyond were there, watching the events as they unfolded. Sitting there were China's Premier, Secretary General Santos, Director Goodhue, Commander Aso, Professor Hayashida, Princess Salno and others.

Among them, Santos saw the demon lured to the field of battle by maser planes. Meeting it were General Ming Tien of the PLA and Commander Kuroki of G-Force Asia as they led the forces of the world and of the Middle Kingdom against the three-headed monster. In terms of men, it was an even greater force than had been assembled at DC to battle the Prince of Skyllans yet in terms of monsters, it was far less. At Kuroki's combined command were more men than had been even at Barbarossa or at Normandy yet even at that they were being cast aside like rag dolls.

The battle raged between King Ghidorah and the humans and all prayed that it would succeed. That it could was possible; after all, the attack plan had been a rather simple one; fire all weapons and destroy the enemy. At Kuroki's command, the order had been carried out and all weapons were being shot; Rolisican Atomic Heat Rays, Japanese maser tanks, American armor piercing DU shells, even if it was just a private with a pea shooter, everything available was sent against the demon. King Ghidorah raged at this; his shield was able to block most of the energy beams but it was useless against non-energy weapons. Shell after shell shot through the skin of his wing or pierced his skin to explode underneath; this was done even as the energy beams that managed to get through his shield burned into his flesh.

Despite this, however, it was like swatting flies for the demon. Firing his Gravity Beams and Crimson Lightning at them, he was able to kill many of the humans yet there were still more against him. The three-headed monster's rage grew at this and he went mindless with a berserk fury lashing out everywhere at once. It really was like swatting flies in that there seemed to just too many for him to kill.

He killed nearly a thousand soldiers with a fireball; he destroyed three divisions of heavy artillery with his Gravity Beams; he did all this and more. Many men there felt themselves growing weaker by the second and knew that it was the demon's Taint; they knew that unless they fell back, they would die in days, if not hours. They had been warned of this, the men there had told that this might well be a suicide mission, especially with that the DT might do. They knew the risks and were ready to take them regardless of their fates because it's not like a soldier can expect to live forever. The love for their fellow men and for their world that drove them to do this was great; so great that the demon's Fear had no hold on them.

However, another thing a very great hold on the demon! The gargantuan Bigfoot Yetrigar came up from behind and brought his fists crashing down against King Ghidorah's back and sent him to the ground. The Prince of Skyllans immediately turned around and sent his enemy staggering back with a kick to the gut; he was paid back with a right hook and a head butt. The demon fired a Triple Beam but despite pure agony, Yetrigar raised his arms and blocked it. With arms bloody and smoking, he roared and charged the demon.

Back at HQ, Salno saw this on the large screen and heard the giant snowman's roar; what's more, she heard it and understood. "Commander Aso, Yetrigar says to have the men pull back. He says that he'll take it from there until Dimension Tide is ready." Aso nodded and relayed the order to the men in the field. As for them, on seeing their monster backup engaging the enemy, Kuroki told the DFE forces to fall back but to be ready to resume the assault a moment's notice. It was something that the men gratefully did and they went back behind the lines to see the two giants do battle and what a battle it was.

Lashing his heads from side to side as if they were monstrous cat-o-nine-tails, King Ghidorah left Yetrigar bruised and bleeding from the onslaught; he returned it with a huge boulder he wrested from the ground. However, the Prince of Skyllans managed to dodge it and struck with a roundhouse tail whip. As for the onetime snowman, he was left with bloody gashes across his chest from spiny clubs and he clutched at his wounds but he refused to fall. He ferociously clawed and bit regardless of how he was killing himself with the demon's sheer presence. Filled with his righteous wrath he injured the staggered demon yet the enemy just grew stronger from this violence and hatred and was ready to strike back.

Meanwhile, from high in the sky, Gryphon was on route towards the battlefield with weapon in tow and was ready to deliver death from above. In it Major Kiriko Tsujimori—she had since been promoted from her rank of Captain—and the rest of the crew were in their black and blue flight suits. She received the words from her F-18 Raptor escort that they were on target and she spoke into her comm-set. "Tsujimori to base, Gryphon is in the air, in range, and awaiting instruction."

In the war room, the chief communications officer that heard that said, "Roger, break formation and head to target." Tsujimori's canard winged plane did so and the communications officer got up from his chair to look at the Secretary General. "Sir, they're breaking formation."

Santos nodded his understanding on hearing that. Meanwhile at the Great Wall, the two observers received word from their comrades and reported that they all had visual confirmation of the Gryphon; it was now hovering in place and waiting for its orders. The Chinese soldier reported from his locale "Base, tracking monitors are online and we are engaging visual recon."

At the war room, the large screen flared with the greenish images seen at the wall and the officer said, "Your highness, the Gryphon has confirmation."

Salno nodded and spoke into her headset. "Yetrigar, the Dimension Tide is ready to fire. You have to take King Ghidorah out now!"

On the battlefield, the mighty monster heard this from the transmitter placed in his ear and roared his acknowledgment; back at HQ, Salno fairly flinched at the sound. The giant brown furred snowman stepped up his assault and sideswiped the enemy even as he clamped his teeth onto the King of Terror's wings. Ghidorah shrieked as he felt his wings snap under the strain and he passed a current of electricity through his skin in retaliation. Roaring in utmost agony, Yetrigar pushed through the pain and closed his huge ape like arms around the three-headed monster and held tight; with that, he let out a strange and hideous shriek.

"What!" cried Salno. "Yetrigar, you can't be serious!"

"What is he saying?" asked Commander Aso.

Tenzin Yetrigar had been Salno's friend, her best friend, but on making himself the monster that stood against King Ghidorah, he had told her that if worse should come to worst, then sacrifices would have to be made. As a leader, Salno knew those painful words all too well. She saw that she could hold onto him for only so long, even now he was growing weak and sick; she saw blisters and boils form all over him and that blood was coming from every orifice. She was pale and trembling and the words spoken as she wept were weakly said. "He's saying 'Fire while I have him. Do it now, take us both.'"

Aso nodded to the communications officer. The man spoke to Tsujimori. "Launch code confirmed. Alpha Zulu 689er, that is your code."

At that, the plane shot forward from its stationary position towards King Ghidorah and Yetrigar, ready to make the kill. In the Gryphon, the crew punched in the code into their weapons system's computers thus making the bomb bay doors open wide and lower the Black Hole Gun into position below the plane. That was done even as Tsujimori engaged the ships tracking devices. "Laser targeting locked on. He's in our sights and we're good to go."

In the war room, the same communications officer looked from his computer tracking station. "Mr. Secretary General, we are locked on. Do you wish to deploy?"

At these words, Santos didn't move, he didn't breath. Almost shaking, he just looked to the image on the screen broadcast from the satellite above; strange, it was almost like an old video game with its beeps and boops. It just showed a triangle headed towards two round images, a far cry from what was about to happen. Santos felt a cold sweat on his brow and his stomach turn.

On seeing that the Secretary General was making no movement, Director Goodhue looked to the man and said, "Mr. Santos, if you wish to deploy, the time is now."

Miguel Santos heard that and his throat was dry. He tried to give the order but couldn't bring himself to do it. With that, Commander Aso leaned forwards from his chair and placed his hand on the man's shoulder. "Mr. Secretary General…"

Squeezing his eyes shut, Secretary General Santos said, "Deploy."

Tsujimori heard this over her comm-set. At that, she grimly nodded and pushed the button. "Here we go."

The Black Hole Gun fired the Dimension Tide and the Gryphon peeled away as fast as it could. In the war room, Santos heard that the bird was away and the observer's voice over the communications systems that it was in flight. Just as before, the DT was shot out as a shimmering, transparent sphere that flew in a straight path, noiseless as a ghost and just as haunting. As it reached its target, King Ghidorah struggled and writhed in Yetrigar's seemingly unbreakable grasp, yet it was just as he was about to break free that he looked up and saw what was coming to face him.

Santos shook his head and said, "May God forgive us." That was when the sphere noiselessly exploded in a ball of light.

Nothing seemed to happen at first and yet all of a sudden the sky opened up to show a black circle. With the opening of the black circle, a great wind of tornado force began to blow and it sent everything near and far flying upwards and away. Stones and shrubs were torn from the ground and soon even men and machines were pulled away into the abyss. Determined that the destroyer of his people would perish alongside him, the dying Yetrigar rallied all his remaining strength to hold King Ghidorah in place to keep him from escaping. As for King Ghidorah, he bizarrely used his gravatic control to anchor himself to the ground in an effort to keep himself in place for what would come. That was because he had realized what it was that the humans had sent against them and so felt no fear. Instead he knew only mad joy because the foolish humans were sending against him a weapon that would give him the keys to doomsday.

The wind increased and everything grew to be a blur as everything was sucked away into nothingness. It just grew blurrier and blurrier until everything went black. On the battlefield, the observers, men trained to see and record, felt a growing panic as they saw the black circle grow and begin to engulf everything as it came towards them. More and more went flying upwards as the hole in the sky swallowed all there and no matter what anyone did all shot towards the sky. In the war room, where Santos and the rest of those at his side were confused as they saw this on the screen and were even more confused when they saw it go blank.

Dour and tense, Secretary General Miguel Santos had a grim look on his face and asked, "Can we confirm that King Ghidorah was destroyed?"

The communications officer immediately looked to his men and said, "Get that tachometer on line! We need confirmation that King Ghidorah's been destroyed!"

A uniformed man nodded. "Yes sir. Red Arrow Alpha 9er 723, can you read?" He heard a garbled message from the Chinese observer. "Please repeat, you're breaking up."

The man at the wall barely came through to the war room. "We have lost visual."

"Roger that, we need visual confirmation that King Ghidorah has been destroyed."

At the Great Wall, the observing soldier and the men under his command rebooted their machine and after some false starts, managed to beam the images they saw back to HQ. However, what HQ saw was a ghastly scene of devastation, desolation, and destruction. The only words that could describe what had happened were those of an American Naval officer when he looked on the first and only time that nuclear weapons were used in anger. In the Hiroshima of 1945 he said that there was a sense of deadness, the very essence of death in the sense of finality with no hope of resurrection. The ground was gutted with a horrific gouge several hundred, perhaps even a thousand feet deep and past that, the land was scoured completely bare. The air was clouded with dust so thick and fine, that visibility was almost non-existent. Beyond the depression, every machine had been turned into a twisted deformed hulk.

But worst of all was what had happened to the men that had used them because now thousands of soldiers were nothing but skeletons protruding from powdery dust. That was because their flesh had been torn from their bones leaving them to die most gruesome deaths; this was seen how alone in the center of the depression, were the mammoth bones of Yetrigar. In fact, as far as the eye could see, there were only skeletons in the dust. They were dead because all things there were dead with no hope of resurrection.

It was like when Jomungand, or Reptilicus, had been beaten in Copenhagen back in the sixties in that although the three-headed monster had indeed been defeated it was done so at a terrible cost. At this, the whole room grew silent and many people there took off their hats in a token of respect. Commander Aso had already taken off his hat and was again reminded of the price of victory. With an angry tone in his voice, he said, "Yeah, we won."

After a time, a communications man found his voice and forced himself to do his job. "Observation station alpha, can you confirm that King Ghidorah has been destroyed?"

At the Great Wall, the Chinese soldier angrily brushed the grime from his face as he went to do his duty, increasing the magnification on his electronic telescope and scanning through dust and death. At first, he could see nothing but then he saw a shadow moving in the mist. He squinted and saw it was a gigantic thing with wings… something with two, no, three appendages from on top. From behind seemingly came a pair of tails… oh no. The observing soldier felt himself go stone cold and begin to shake. In response to the question given him he said in a weak and broken voice "…Ghidorah… remains. I repeat… Ghidorah remains…"

As the image went on screen there was a collective gasp among all those in the room. There was the demon Prince of Skyllans, the destroyer of worlds, the devil's hammer alive. He seemed even bigger than before and because he in fact was. He was now some two hundred meters tall and more powerful; this was clearly seen in the demon's appearance. Just as he had changed after the destruction of Apophis, so was he changed now in how he appeared. Down each of his three necks was a row of spines and his eyes shone red with dagger like pupils made of darkness. His three heads seemingly sported beards of horns and his three faces were twisted and deformed. Coming from the outer heads were antler like horns, two large ones from the back and a small one curving on the forehead; in the middle head, the main horns were especially large and twisted and branching.

What had happened was that the humans had sought to destroy him with the force of gravity because that was how a black hole works. It is odd how these things happen but just as Satan was once the brightest object in the heavens before he fell, black holes were once stars. When some stars die they peacefully fade away while others collapse in on themselves and in doing so, create so much gravity that they become an all devouring, all destroying abyss of darkness from which nothing, not even light can escape. The destructive power of these fallen stars is so great that they tear a hole into the very fabric of reality and open the doorways to other realities. That is how a black hole works and that was why King Ghidorah was still alive.

King Ghidorah had power over gravity; that was how his beams worked and that was how he was able to levitate himself through the sky. He was also an energy absorber and survived by "eating" various forms of energy. The two things combined meant that the three-headed monster had been able to reverse the Dimension Tide's destructive effects and absorb its power into himself. Thus far from being injured, he had only been made more powerful. Though they wouldn't learn it until later, the evil one was made so powerful by this that he could bring about the final destruction of the cursed Earth and claim final victory.

All the generals and leaders had done had been in vain and all those brave men had died for nothing. It was then that they all realized that King Ghidorah really could not be defeated and that it really was the end. It was the end for all of them. The men in the war room all saw this and could only feel fear at what they saw. As for their leader, Santos saw this on the screen and saw the demon seemingly dancing in the sky, issuing a mad cackle as he did so. "He's laughing at us…" Santos shot up from his chair and slammed his fist to the table. "He's laughing at us!"

With that, he just stood in silence before his next words. "Call the Gryphon back."

Goodhue gasped, "But sir, it must have misfired, next shot we might have more luck. We shouldn't just give up on this!"

"I said call it back!"

All was silent until Aso said one word. "Abort."

Some people just cursed and some grumbled and some scrambled at the officer's words of issuing the abort codes that this was an abort, a full abort.

It was over… it really was the end.