Chapter Eight
Back in Greenland, the final battle was at hand and the weak and mortal men that sought to profit from it stood at a distance from the final battlefield to watch. A trio of men that hoped to influence the outcome stood not to far off in a mechanical monster that was called MOGUERA. In the robotic behemoth they sat and waited, though perhaps not patiently.
"Boss, how much longer are we going to have to wait?" asked Glen as he zipped up his jacket.
Santos passionlessly looked out of the machine's windows to see the vast snowy field and army camp from over a hundred meters up. Speaking in monotone, he said, "Until King Ghidorah arrives."
With breath freezing, the shivering Fuji sighed as he drummed his fingers on the control panel in front of him and looked to the humming house sized generators strewn in the field before them. "And when will that be?"
His leader saw energy beams shot back and forth in the distance, heralding the demon's arrival. "Any minute now actually," said the commander.
Seemingly immune to the cold, Santos checked the holographic transmitters and saw that MOGUERA was still disguised as a large hill. He then looked to his satellite linked monitors and was not only confirmed of the quarry flying in but also saw that the second monster was less than an hour away. "You know the plan, he comes in and eats that energy. It leaves him doped up and Godzilla comes to destroy him. If it looks like Ghidorah's going to win or if he actually does win, we pick up where Godzilla left off."
Dressed in military BDU and wearing his M-helmet like his comrades, the blonde man scrunched his eyebrows. "So we're only going to get into this fight to play clean up…"
Santos nodded. "You heard it in the briefing. This is going to be Godzilla's fight and we're not going to get in his way."
That was seen in the people down below as they scrambled about their duties, running this way and that. The few still there were doing the final duties for they were the last, all others had already gone to hide in previously made bunkers. In one of those cold, crowded bunkers and clad in a parka, Miki walked towards the radar screen but could barely see it. She took off her sunglasses—without protective eyewear, Artic snow will reflect enough sun into your eyes to leave you blind—and saw clearly enough to look at the radar screen to know that Mothra and Battra were already baiting King Ghidorah to make the final approach. (She inwardly sighed; the injured Quetzalcoatl had so wanted to help fly in the mission.) That was when she heard it.
What she heard was a muffled explosion that made the bunker shake and the hiss of steam as energy beams vaporized the snow outside. Miki fought the urge to go out and look for herself—she'd been told that she had to stay alive and conscious for Godzilla to home in on—and maneuvered around the mob of people going everywhere at once in an effort to make it to the main screen. Once she made it there, she just stood there transfixed. It was if everything froze and the world melted away as she saw the horrific images play out before her on the plasma screen.
King Ghidorah was already there, his feet in the snow and his body low to the ground as he fired strafing shots at his two foes. Snow blasted away by their slip streams, the emaciated Lepidopteron twins dodged the Gravity Beams and rocketed upwards. Increasing his speed to the maximum, Battra made a hairpin aerial turn and went into a death dive towards the Prince of Skyllans. Screeching like a dive bomber as he shot down, the Black Mothra was just a blur as his keratin wings slashed the side of the evil one. Howling more in indignation than pain King Ghidorah turned all three necks and furiously fired a barrage of fireballs at the insect… which is what the insect wanted.
With that, Mothra wheeled down from her high place and flew in downward corkscrew circles as she gave off a shimmering dust. Too angry to notice this, King Ghidorah only noticed when a fireball he shot off ricocheted straight back and hit him. Unprepared to absorb the energy or shield himself, the evil one was knocked back. Enraged, he charged and fired three Gravity Beams yet that too went back and singed him. The demon's sinuous, snake like neck placed his middle head directly in front of his chest wound; it saw the wound was already closing but what had happened? With his anger cooling, he let himself see the sparkles that shimmered around him; anyone else might have called it beautiful but to King Ghidorah they galled him.
It was Mothra's reflective pollen and he was trapped! Unlike the first time when the vacuum of space kept the pollen from doing its work, this time the conditions were just right. That was when Battra flew directly opposite to her circle, in a holding pattern, and cast from his body a scarlet mist, as if it were droplets of blood that hung in the air. The red mist began to have its effects as the wounds that King Ghidorah had inflicted on himself not only stopped closing but began to open further. (Normally, though the anthrax like toxin would leave a foe screaming for death but this was all you could hope for considering the foe.)
Set in hideous gorgon faces, the demon's six red eyes began to glow with hatred for he saw that there was only one thing for him to do. With that, his whole body began to glow as beaten gold and his wings shone as rubies and both charged with energy. Too late to react, Mothra and Battra saw the three-headed monster loose a torrent of Gravity Beams and Crimson Lightning with all his awful strength. The beam attacks, of course, were reflected back on their master and caused wound and welt to appear all over him but as each was reflected back, it kept taxing the duo's strength to do so.
It was a game of chicken, Ghidorah was willing to endure his self inflicted torment but were his foes willing to endure it on themselves? For a moment that was unknown as the King of Terror reflected Gravity Beam after Gravity Beam back on himself and slashing his body apart with his own destructive power. Yes the evil one screeched in torment so horribly that there were those driven mad by it, but Mothra's mystic pollen began to waver and wave erratically. Battra saw this and flew from his side of the circle next to her; in hovering next to her and flapping his wings as he did so, he gave her his strength so that she might hold on that much longer but it was not enough.
With one final unearthly howl that made ice shatter and snow fall, with final reflected streams of gravity and of red lightning to tear open his belly and leave burning blood to poison the land below, the shimmering pollen was broken. Then with diabolic masks on his faces, King Ghidorah moved his three skulls towards one another and fired a combined Triple Beam towards Mothra and Battra that blasted them from the sky. Their bodies sooty and singed and with wings in flames, the siblings fell from the sky and crashed to the earth to be buried under snow and ice.
He looked to them and saw them on their backs and buried in the snow, the area around them melting and their singed bodies smoking. As for King Ghidorah, he was hardly better. To "overload" the pair, he had left himself terribly injured; his belly and chest were slashed and burned, his wings were raw and torn open, the skin was blasted from his neck, etc. Staggering about, and with smoke emanating from his body he had a bad mind—three actually—to go and be rid of himself of the two moths once and for all, but he was tired. The fact that Battra's blood mist still clung to his skin and caustically burned his skin and poisoned his wounds hardly helped. He was so tired and hurt because he could endure any attack save his own.
That was when he looked forwards and saw it, as if in a daze, and looked on it. What he saw were dozens of plasma generators all scattered around the ice field but a few miles away. Grotesque faces softening ever so slightly, King Ghidorah began to hobble towards them, hoping to replenish his strength with all that sweet energy, all that sweet delicious energy. Yes he would go there, and drink his fill, then his would be healed and use his power to smite his enemies. Stupid humans leaving that there for him, stupid, stupid humans…
In the MOGUERA, Tomas Santos saw this and allowed himself a grim smile. He looked to his control panel and connected to HQ. "Santos to base, Santos to base, so far so good, King Ghidorah has broken his power and is going to absorb the energy set out for him. Over."
"HQ to MOGUERA, we read you loud and clear. What is Mothra and Battra's status, over?"
"They were hurt badly but it looks they'll make it, over and out."
At that, MOGUERA's controllers and the people on the ground collectively held their breaths as they saw the air shimmer beneath the demon and knew he was warping gravity beneath him. With his wings moving him across the land for his broken legs were too weak to do so, King Ghidorah painfully moved towards the generators. If he had had any sense, he would have suspected a trap and not have gone anywhere near the generators but Hayashida himself had designed them and even now they were doing their work, dulling his senses and weakening his mind. All that he could think of was of so much sweet energy.
That was made evident when he reached a plasma generator and hovered above it. But although the pseudo nuclear reactor was the size of a two story building, it was dwarfed by the now over six hundred fifty feet tall three-headed monster; that was made clear when King Ghidorah "perched" on it. The demon hovered upon it, his dangling talons barely touching it, and began to siphon off the power, blue streaks of lightning lashing from top of the machine and into the air towards his legs. It was a quick affair as the plasma generator was forced to work several times past its capacity and, after it began to glow, suffered a slight explosion and left smoke coming from out its burnt and molten sides.
King Ghidorah looked at the wreck beneath him and did the equivalent of a mental shrug because he just looked away and turned to another plasma generator. After that, he turned to another and then another, repeating the process the whole while. Back at the bunker, the technicians were slightly unnerved at this. In reality, they all knew that they were just making the wretch even more powerful. At the center of the room, watching it all from the main screen, Commander Raschen knew this most of all. Although he knew that the demon grew more drunk and insensate by the moment, he also saw that with each erg of energy that the three-headed monster absorbed, another of his wounds closed.
He looked to his side and turned to Miki. "Miss Segeusa, how much longer until Godzilla arrives?"
After tearing her gaze from the burned and injured forms of Mothra and Battra, she said, "He'll be here in a matter of minutes, sir. I 'told' him when the plan would be executed and when he should come." The psychic closed her eyes and saw what the King of the Monsters saw in dark, salty water. She saw particles of ice and bubbles of air flow past her and felt the rush of cold water. She then felt a titanic, scaled body breach the surface to inhale a great lungful of air before crashing below the near frozen, frothy sea. "He's in sight of land. He surfaced before going back down below."
A few minutes later, Colonel McDonough came up from behind and to report to his Commander. "Sir, we've-"
"Spotted Godzilla? And let me guess, the observers that spotted him think he might have been coming up for air?"
"Yeah but how'd you…" That's when he turned to see the smirking Miki Segeusa and smiled. "Yes, sir. That's what our scouts reported.
"Anything else soldier?"
"Sir, no sir."
"Very well, return to your post."
McDonough nodded and went back. With that, the Commander looked to the psychic at his side. "You're good."
Segeusa bit her lip as she thought what Moll, Lora, and Belvera might feel at this. "Thank you sir. I had very good teachers." With that, she and the Commander returned their attention to the screen before them.
At the screen, they saw just what it that was happening and it was King Ghidorah. He was going from generator to generator stealing every last drop of plasma and leaving the house sized machines nothing but slag. Yet as he did so, the unholy beast began to teeter and sway; though frightened, Miki went and scanned his cancerous mind. She encountered a swirling jumble that showed nothing but sloth and drunkenness and said, "If Sanno left Orochi drunk with liquor than so will we."
Drunkenly staggering back and forth, King Ghidorah could barely stand up with all the "spiked" plasma coursing through him. His wings drooped and his long twisting necks lolled even as the spines on the clubs of his twin dragging tails gouged furrows in the ice. He could feel nothing and he could think of nothing save taking more of the sweet, sweet plasma into himself. In the very back of his three dark, ugly minds, a strange little thought began to form and rose to that very last dreg of rational thought.
That thought was, in fact, a memory of the time he went and did battle with the Vortakk. They had fancied themselves conquerors and like all planetary conquerors had sought to make an army of monsters. To that end, they culled from the ranks of the skyllans a formidable army that was bent to their will. Yet as was such with those who grew drunk with power, it was not enough. An army of skyllans was not enough, for it to be complete the Prince of Skyllans was needed and so they laid a trap for King Ghidorah. This was what the three-headed monster remembered, that and that the Vortakk had used plasma generators tuned to his energy signature to trap him…
At that sudden realization, the demon screeched in black fury and fired his beams towards the heavens in his anger. He realized that the humans were trying to keep him there for some purpose and that that purpose would inevitably end in his destruction. With six eyes glowing red with hate and three deformed, gorgon faces, twisting into a mask of horror, the King of Terror turned around to the humans and in the command center the terrified humans knew that the proverbial jig was up. As for Ghidorah, he could only ask one thing… they would make a dupe… out of him!
Rage burning away his stupor, the devil's hammer loosed his Crimson Lightning against the plasma generators, thus causing an explosion to rock the whole area. He leapt into the sky and he spun around in the sky from a hanging position, firing his Gravity Beams in ever widening circles, destroying everything they touched. It was what some called a Death Storm and its amplified gravity Beams left all they touched was made into so many smashed atoms. When he stopped spinning and his feet touched the ground, three hideous skulls looked this way and that to survey the destruction and saw it everywhere in the form of broken metal, smoking rubble, and charred bodies.
With that he felt a shot from behind and it hurt him. Intolerable, who would strike the Prince of Skyllans now! As of in response to the demon's thought, MOGUERA came rolling in on its tank tread feet firing its eye mounted Plasma Laser Guns and its chest mounted Plasma Laser Cannon. If someone watching this had stopped to ask, he might have considered the irony in this, being fed with plasma one moment but being attacked with it another. However, neither monster nor machine much cared about irony at that moment and sought little more than pure battle at that moment.
At some 120 meters tall and armed to the teeth, silver and blue MOGUERA was ready to fight and so was its crew. Seasoned veterans of several a Monster Wars campaign and willing to pay any price for victory, Santos, Glen, and Fuji were ready to face down their demonic foe… or more accurately face up. At 200 meters tall, the golden three-headed monster towered over his hated metal foe and sought to crush it like an egg. As he stretched out his wings and twitched his tails from side to side, he knew that if the humans sought to meet him with guile and trickery, then so be it, but let it be known that that would be their greatest mistake.
And the battle was on…
At Infant Island, the Elias were in grim meditation. As much as they had wanted to join their other halves after what happened to them, they had been unable to do so for there was work to be done. King Ghidorah's necrotic presence was poisoning the very Earth he walked on and if something wasn't done right away then Earth would be forfeit, even if he were defeated. That was seen in how it had begun snowing on the tropical island… snowing! The people there had been preparing for a long hard road ever since the handmaidens of their gods had learned that the evil one was coming but it was becoming too much to bear! Some of the islanders even wished for the old days when the land was poisoned by radiation, at least then they knew what to expect.
For now, however, three sisters were deep underneath the soil and stone of the isle in the broken remains of the old temple. Once, it had been center for all worship across Lemuria and its spires glistened in the sun and shone by the moon. Thick with the scent of incense and with the thunder of drums, temple dancers moved their bodies and gave their voices in worship and praise to their goddess and her children. They praised them for guarding them, for giving them the sweet, fair land of their birth, for blessing them with crops and rain and most of all for teaching them ways of love and mercy.
Such it was for time immemorial but the day came that the sun was blotted out by golden wings. As though he were a black moon to eclipse the light, he came and wrought destruction untold on all the lands, destruction so great that civilization had to begin anew. By the time it was done, a mighty continent was reduced to one island and the holy temple that had taken the Lemurians a hundred years to build was made a shattered ruin. Now, the daughters of the priestess of the goddess were there in the lightless dust of the ruin.
There, amidst broken stones and fallen pillars, they three stood atop the stone alter where a cross was inlaid inside a triangle. It represented a trinity of virtues and each diminutive sister stood at one point, Belvera at Courage, Moll at Wisdom and Lora at Love. As the trio always did, they levitated the shield of their father between them, touching it with the three divided blades of their mother's sword; absorbed in their magicks, they shone strange colors and illuminated the darkened place they were in. It was then that all of a sudden that they felt a shot of agony go through them that made the scream and fall.
They all fell, clutching their swords and with the Shield cast aside but they met the effort to rise up. Though nauseous, Belvera was the first to get up and on seeing her sisters still on the ground, she immediately rushed to their side. She saw that Moll was moaning as she stirred about; seeing that she would survive, she went and checked Lora's pulse. Though Lora herself was exhausted, her pulse and breath were still strong. The middle sister forced herself to her wobbly feet and rushed to the youngest sister when she saw that she had yet to get up.
"Lora! Lora, are you all right, can you hear me?"
Though pained, the baby of them began to sit up and winced at the yell. "I'm all right. Just don't yell."
Blue dress rustling as she shrank back, Moll bit her lip and said, "Sorry."
Belvera helped her little sister back up and the little sister said, "Its ok Moll but… what happened? We were trying to reconnect broken ley lines and get Earth's mana flowing again when…"
"When the final truth was revealed to you my daughters."
On hearing a voice unheard in 12,000 years, three sisters turned as one and saw their mother, Titania the Dragon Queen, and their father, Oberon the Lord Elias. Unable to believe her eyes, Lora walked up to them and hesitated, as if afraid to touch them. "Mama, daddy."
She stopped and did not move just as her sisters did not move as they saw these visions as well for visions they were with what was seen. The diminutive pair was seen to shimmer and to be transparent and made of pale light that shone; they were ghosts that stood on the alter before the three sisters. Holding hands as they walked atop the cross of the trinity, it was plain that they would have been a magnificent sight in life with flowing robes and chains of gold and jeweled crowns on their heads. Alas, they were not alive and were only capable of inspiring fear… except in the hearts of those whom they loved because true love is greater than fear.
Overcome by feeling and with tears in her eyes, Belvera rushed to hold her father tight but he held up his hand and shook his head. With a sad look on his face, he said, "I am sorry my dear sweet child but that I can not do. As you see, neither your mother nor I stand as flesh and our time here is naught but a short one."
Moll nervously strode to her Titania and said, "Mother, my sisters and I have missed you so for all these millennia. Is it time for we three to join you in the land beyond?"
"No my little one," said the Dragon Queen as her ghostly hand caressed her daughter's cheek. "The time has not yet come for our family to be reunited forever."
Then her face grew dark as she contemplated her feelings. "Not yet anyways."
Frightened, Lora asked, "What do you mean 'not our time yet?' What's the matter?"
"The demon, that's the matter." The three sisters' ghostly mother turned away from them so that they would not see her cry. "The humans have fought valiantly against the enemy and the plan they brought against him now was especially clever in its simplicity. Bait the evil one with that which gives him his simulacrum of life and leave him drunk and unknowing then call he whose birth I implored to come. With that, the champion of the Great Tyrannosaur would come and avenge his sire's children against he who killed so many of them."
Oberon then shook his head as he placed a hand on his eldest daughter's shoulder. "King Ghidorah is a cunning and wily thing for he has seen through the trap laid for him and has escaped from those who would destroy him. He saw that men and monsters laid that trap for him and reasoned that it was to leave him there for a final battle against the Great Tyrannosaur's champion.
"The three-headed monster has decided that there will be a final battle but he will choose where it will be, nobody else. Not only that, but the source of all our woes has also decided that it will be about more than just Godzilla and he. On this island, there has been hunger and disease and now a cold time has come; what has happened here will happen a trillion fold across the Earth should evil win. The final strike shall not just be against Godzilla but against Gaea herself."
At that, Belvera, Lora, and Moll collectively gasped. Able to telepathically feel their parents fears, the three of them had known that something was the matter but it was only until the last word slipped from their father's mouth that they realized just what it was they were up against. For a time every last one of them went completely pale, even their lips were white, and they began to tremble. Always the mediator and most balanced of Oberon and Titania's daughters, it was Moll that finally spoke up.
"You don't mean to saw that King Ghidorah will use the power of World Extinction?"
"Yes." With a sour look on his face, her ghostly father looked away. "…Oddly enough, it was the humans that gave him power enough to do it now."
" …But, but he can't! Not even he would do such a thing!"
Titania frowned. "Oh wouldn't he? He killed those that gave him birth didn't he? He murdered his own children, didn't he? He put out the light of all the stars his world could see, didn't he? He killed me, didn't he!"
Her husband laid a comforting shoulder on her hand and gently chided her. "Titania dearest," he said wagging his finger at her, "calm down. He killed the both of us when he destroyed Lemuria; seeing how you were just another face in the crowd to him, it wasn't personal."
Angry tears on her face, she sullenly said, "Oberon, I doubt that its 'not being personal' meant anything to the victims of Unit 731 as they were tortured to death in the name of science."
"Perhaps dearest but we mustn't let such angry feelings get in the way of finding solutions to the problem. Rest assured that while we ourselves won't be able to affect that solution there will be those that can."
Lora looked to the two who were king and queen of their race, or the shades thereof, and whispered, "Surely not us. We have done all we can but we are not the ones that the Creator has chosen to save this world He made."
Now more composed, Titania the Dragon Queen answered. "No child, it is not you, you are not the chosen one. Remember to whom the mission is entrusted, it is entrusted unto the beauty who sees into the hearts of men and the beast that will smite God's enemy. I foresaw this future in the last days of Lemuria. The vision was entrusted to me by the Supreme Being of how the Age of Men would end and the Age of Monsters begin. Moll, Lora, Belvera, that the champion of Draco Deus would rise up was a vision which I entrusted to the three of you when your father and I died, and for millennia you kept it until the dawn of the Monster Wars. In the future I saw, men and monsters fought alongside one another as they did in the time of the Ancients and they triumphed and the world was saved."
"Or so your mother said." Oberon ran his hand across his eldest's cheek before kissing the younger ones on their foreheads. "That was the prophecy but as we all know, prophecy can be a tricky thing. The prophecy that my Dragon Queen received from the Dragon God is as such but while a prophecy might say what it means, it might not mean what it says. The world can be saved my daughters three as the prophecy says, if you make it so.
"Even now the devil's hammer flies to an isle of man made mountains and of towers forged of glass and steel. It is there that the demon will bring forth the final destruction of this planet unless he is stopped once and for all. You must quickly tell the chosen one what lies ahead of her and that unless she passes the final test… all will be lost."
Confused, Moll asked "Final test? What final test? Mother, father what's happening, what's going on?"
Titania took Oberon's hand and stepped back, fading as they did so. As one they both said, "That you three must divine for yourselves or it shall not be divined at all. Know that the end is at hand but that it can be the end for this world of the devil that would destroy it. Farewell."
With that, Moll, Lora, and Belvera were alone once more in the temple sanctuary.
With a soul made of love, one clad in blue and silver said, "We have to go tell the Chosen One. She's counting on us, we can't fail her." Lora unsheathed her sword and set it before her.
With a mind full of wisdom, one clad in red and gold said, "We know what to do and how to go about doing it. We mustn't give in now when we're so close." Moll unsheathed her sword and set it before her.
With a heart forged with courage, one clad in jet black said, "We haven't given up yet nor will we ever. The three of are going to fight to the end, no matter what!" Belvera unsheathed her sword and set it before her.
Looking at three crossed swords, the eldest said, "Are you with me? Will we fight to the end?"
Two sisters that proclaimed the light both said, "We fight to the end."
One sister that looked from the dark said, "I can't hear you!"
With both younger and middle smiling, they yelled, "We fight to the end!"
At that moment and doing far less dramatic things, Kyle was in Brooklyn, New York, in the small house he and his grandfather were staying in. Funny, while UNGCC's scientific division wasn't strictly military, it was still paramilitary and that meant the adage of an army man traveling was still true. The thought came to him because though he and his grandfather had been at the new house for a month, they'd yet to finish unpacking with all they were doing. Proof positive was in how he was going over the last boxes left in the living room. True, what little furniture that could be scraped together was in place and the computer was hooked in but the wooden floor was still bare and so were the walls. And there was still a pile of boxes there that were filled with junk!
Thinking to remedy that, he'd decided to spend his day off unpacking boxes; he'd been at it the whole morning. However, there was one box marked valuables that had given him more trouble than it was seemingly worth so there he sat on the wooden floor, trying to open it with a pair of shears. When it at last burst open, Kyle looked inside and felt a sentimental smile as he pulled out his old GI Joe and Transformer toys. Of all the things grandpa could have salvaged when the old house was destroyed back in Chicago, thought the kaijologist. Even so, after gazing across the empty house to see nobody was looking, he had the soldier and the robot in his hands and held them right next to one another.
Doing impressions, he said, "'C'mon Optimus, its time to fight Cobra and the Decipticons!' 'Right behind you Duke!' " After allowing himself a slight chuckle, Kyle gently placed the old toys back into the box and put the box on the kitchen table nearby. Feeling tad thirsty, he went to the refrigerator to pull out a carton of orange juice and went for a clean glass from barely stocked cupboards. As he did so he came across his grandfather's medication and, after pouring himself a glass, he checked his watch. Grandpa was due for his pills but he decided to hold off until the old man woke up.
Drinking from his cup, Kyle leaned back against the counter and wondered if this had been brought on by how his grandfather had gone with Miki to Infant Island a year ago. The old man should have known better than to risk his health like that, he wasn't a young man to be running around. Since then, his condition had steadily been growing worse, especially since what happened to Chicago. At the moment, his grandfather was sleeping in the bedroom and getting much needed rest. With that thought and with a last sip, Kyle rinsed his cup, set it in the sink and went back to unpacking.
However, he had just come across a box marked books and began moving it towards the empty bookshelf when he heard at what sounded like a car crash outside. Worried, Kyle rushed to the window and saw that it was indeed a car crash; for reasons he did not know, he was filled with a tremendous overwhelming fear as he went to and opened the front door to look at Greenpoint Brooklyn. What greeted him was a mad panic that gripped the entire line of row houses from one end of the block to another, a mad panic that took the form of people running out of their houses driving away like madmen in their cars and other things.
Not knowing why, he ran inside and slammed the door shut behind him, hands quivering as he locked it. Trembling uncontrollably he ran towards a dining room corner and huddled into a ball; something bad was going to happen, something terrible, he just knew it! Sick in both body and soul, Kyle's trembling hand struggled to reach a large knife on the tabletop and he grasped it. So scared that he just wanted to die, a cold sweat covered his body and he pointed the knife towards his chest.
Whimpering like a pathetic child, he was unprepared to see his grandfather calmly walk into the living room. The old man calmly turned around to see Kyle shaking behind the dining room's table and on seeing that, knew what happened. Unmoved on seeing his grandson in such a wretched state, he just looked at him for a moment before walking towards him. On reaching him, he pulled a knife from hands that grew limp and walked towards the kitchen.
It was then that explosions were heard in the distance and that the whole house began to shake. Yet even before the shaking subsided, Steven Martin emotionlessly left the knife on the counter and went towards the cupboards to get his pills. Brushing aside plaster that had fallen from the ceiling, Steven got a bottle of water from the refrigerator and took his medicine. On seeing his grandfather strong and sure, Kyle looked at him and tried to make him an anchor point, trying to take control of himself.
Then he began throwing up. The self assured kaijuologist gagged and felt burning, stinking bile force itself up his throat and out his mouth; when he stopped, he saw that he messed the floor and himself. With tears of pain and fear coming from his eyes, he felt like a little boy again and looked to his grandfather. With a weak voice, the trembling man/boy asked, "What happened grandpa?"
"Ghidorah happened Kyle."
At that name, the reporter's grandson began to rock and back forth in his huddle and moan. Despite this, however, he showed little pity instead just crossing his arms and scolding his grandson.
"Kyle, get it together," said the old man as he stirred up some coffee. "King Ghidorah may be warping your mind with the Fear, but the hold it has on you is only as strong as the hold you let it have. I've raised you since your parents died and with the things I've seen you do, and the things I've seen you face, I know you're stronger than some monster's parlor tricks."
"Th-the F-Fear…?" He saw his grandpa nod as he poured himself a mug. "You mean th-th-that I'm not really scared… He's just making me think I'm scared?"
Steven Martin sighed as he leaned against the kitchen doorway. "Kyle, if you, an ordinary human being, are brave enough to single-handedly face down Godzilla, who's over three hundred feet taller than you and a trillion times more powerful, time and again, why would you be scared of this?
"Ask yourself that," said the old man as he drank his coffee.
The light clicked inside his head as he processed those words. "Yeah… you're right. You're right!"
The logic of those words burning away madness like noonday sun burns away mist, Kyle Martin shot up in indignation and angrily tore away the vomit smeared outer shirt. With that off and wiping his mouth clean with a paper towel, he was in his tank top and turned to his grandfather. He asked, "How'd you know what to do?"
"Ghidorah's powers aren't absolute, and that especially goes for the one he used on you. Not only does he not always use it, the Fear can be countered either telepathically or psychologically, as I had you do."
Still uncertain, Kyle turned away. "Well why weren't you affected? Is it because you can't feel fear?"
"Of course." With that, the old man finished his coffee and put the mug in the sink. What frightened the young man was that he knew the old man was right.
"Whatever grandpa, we can't stay here. We've got to leave right now. I'm going back out to take a look."
He walked out and went towards the door, bracing himself for whatever he might encounter. When he was ready, he threw the door open and went outside; not surprisingly, what he saw wasn't encouraging. Though just the suburbs, hundreds of people were panicking everywhere, running for their lives in mass mobs and were throwing everything they could into their cars. Choking the narrow Brooklyn street, they were running in every direction like stampeding herds, screaming in panic and scrambling with terror. His heart going out to them, Kyle tried to call to them, reason with them, but as they deafly passed by him bumping past him, clutching stolen goods—looting had already begun—he knew it was useless.
Then all of a sudden, he heard an ungodly shriek cut the air, a shriek that made windows and glass in the whole area explode, glass that lacerated the poor people to red ribbons. With that, Kyle—and everyone else—was on the ground and trembling on his knees; on the sidewalk and with hands covering his ears, he took away his hands and saw them covered with blood. Looking up from where he was, he saw that people in a black shadow covered themselves with their hands and cried.
Knowing his duty, Kyle got up and looked to the enemy, defiantly screaming and shaking his fists at the demon. He looked up and saw King Ghidorah so high in the air that he was just a speck, even so he was casting Gravity Beams hither and yon, causing buildings everywhere to explode like bombs. With hot air thick with smoke and glass crunching beneath his shoes, he ran in panic towards his house. However, he was already on the lawn when he saw the garage door was opening and the car was rolling out; he froze and turned towards it.
Doing that he saw that his imperturbable grandfather was not only in the driver's seat but already had it running and was tuning the radio. Kyle let himself shake his head as he saw the prophet of doom vindicated once more. At least he knew that they'd last for a while with the trunk and backseat full of supplies. In any event, Kyle made it around to the passenger side seat and listened into the frightened reporter speak amidst screams and explosions.
"Its finally happened folks. New York City is under attack by King Ghidorah! America hoped it'd seen the last of the three-headed monster since Washington about five months ago but he's back for blood. NYC city had served as the new capital for months now since the old one was destroyed but with it's under attack and with it having served as a refugee camp for almost a year now, the casualties are going to be astronomical! Earliest reports show that Staten Island, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, have all been attacked along with a large part of north east New Jersey. Here in New York, a tremendous mass of life is pouring around me. C-can you hear it? It's like Satan proclaiming hell on earth!"
At that, the terrified reporter froze in her narration. Of course, the explosions continued and so did the demon's harpy shrieks but the screams all stopped. Steven and Kyle Martin were especially worried on this. Looking at each other, they turned up the sound and listened.
"I'm not sure what to say folks… b-but it looks like King Ghidorah is… he's wheeling around for another attack and h-his screams and his shrieks shows that he's not done and, and … ahhhhh! Run for your lives!"
That was the last that Steven Martin and his grandson heard from the reporter. The people at the studio hurriedly said something of technical difficulties but the Kyle and grandfather knew what was at work. With well over nine million souls to torment, King Ghidorah would be using the Fear with a vengeance. With as many people as Tokyo but without kaiju experience since the 1950s, the city was going to be in trouble. City wide panic would hamper any rescue efforts and many people would drop dead from shock by the time it was done.
Knowing that, Kyle decided to take advantage of the rare unobstructed view that the Greenpoint neighborhood offered and climbed to the top of his car and from there, scrambled to the top of a garage. He looked northwards and saw across the East River towards Manhattan, he saw the building and he saw the evil one. He was indeed above the skies of New York's heart, casting a stray Gravity Beam here and Crimson Lightning there, raining death from above. With that Kyle jumped down from the garage and got into the car. He locked the door behind, put on his seat belt, and looked to his grandfather.
Steven Martin looked back at him and said, "You know what we have to do."
Kyle felt an insane smirk cross his face just as it did his grandfather's. "When it comes to courting death, there's nothing like chasing a kaiju!"
With that, the car went out of the driveway and raced towards Manhattan.
Meanwhile, in Manhattan itself, the scene was chaos. All across and around the fountains and trees and grassy hills of Central Park, ragged refugees from across the US, stopped and froze as King Ghidorah's shadow swept across them. Whatever it was they were doing, be it cooking on a hot plate or tuning their radios or looking over their tents and shacks, they stopped and froze as the shadow passed over them. For a moment they were still but soon enough, with sick feelings in their stomachs, they all looked upwards and saw the three-headed monster fly slowly and menacingly over them. Then, as if on cue, people all over got up and ran screaming over the Park's vast grounds, past Cleopatra's Needle, past the Alice in Wonderland Statue, past the Lake, and past the Zoo where the animals bellowed and crashed against the sides of the their enclosures.
On Broadway, people crashed their cars in panic and mounted New York City policemen attempting to restore order gave into the Fear soon enough leaving horse and rider to run for their lives. Driven to madness, some policemen were even shooting people left and right. In the forever gaudy, forever neon lit Times Square, the Jumbo Tron was broadcasting that it was suspected that King Ghidorah would soon enter New York airspace before it and the building on which it was mounted was vaporized by said monster; as for the Naked Cowboy, he and the other street performers just ran like Hell. Over at Broadway and Bowery, people were panicking and tripping over the carts and stalls of the Farmer's Market as they struggled to get to safety; didn't do them much good as Gravity Beams caused the entire area to explode into flame—and with the people in it. In the Upper East Side, a man with a kippah (yarmulke in Yiddish) walked out of a store marked "Kurtzburg's," grumbling about how could he run a proper business with all the screaming. He was talking trash about those damn son of this, damn sons of that; he began smoking a cigarette, smoking and swearing were old habits of his when he went on break. He kept at that before he look up and saw Samael flying up over the rim of the concrete canyons; on doing that he screamed "Got in Himmel!" and ran for his life.
It was like that all over Manhattan as King Ghidorah smashed building after building into dust and flying sideways between skyscrapers. With banshee screams bursting every ear drum and driving every mind mad, he continued sowing chaos in the core of America's greatest city. Building after building was smashed to fell across Manhattan and the rest of the City; the GE, the Metlife Building all of them. Rubble a hundred feet deep was strewn everywhere and whole neighborhoods were devoured in seconds by clouds of dust and debris. In the greatest city's greatest point, the Empire State Building, one woman was blissfully unaware as she came out of a newspaper HQ's records room. But as she closed the door behind her, a frantic man grabbed her from behind.
"What?" A stunned Connie Matsu turned around. "What's the matter Ronnie? What's the emergency?"
Her cameraman screamed, "It's King Ghidorah! He's here and we gotta run!"
An insane smile spreading across her face, she knew it was the feeling that drove every insane monster chasing reporter. "This is perfect! C'mon, we're going to get on the observation deck before it's too late."
"Are you crazy woman! The only thing we'll be too late for is to get out alive!"
Ignoring him, Connie twisted free of his grip and ran to the nearest newsroom; she knew it had big windows all around. Gleeful as a kid in a candy store, she ran to the nearest window, fighting her way through the surge of people running past their cubicles and brushing aside flying papers. As she ignored fading cries of "Audrey, you better have saved my schedule" and "Sure, now let's get out Mr. Caiman," Matsu threw open a window and began taking photos of King Ghidorah as he screeched and flew and delivered death in the skies above the mighty towers of the island city. Whipping out a handheld voice recorder, she began saying what she saw, alternating between that and photos she was almost unprepared when she saw King Ghidorah rush the building.
Stunning even her, she saw the supersonic monster rocket towards her, filling the entire skyline with its hideous visage, before breaking off in a vertical 90 degree turn. Even so, the force and rush of it exploded the window, the slipstream sending razor blade shards flying and cutting the people that failed to get somewhere safe. Almost unprepared but not quite, Connie just barely managed to duck for cover behind a desk; on getting back up she looked around and saw the people still there. Putting her gizmo's aside for the moment, she helped a cut person back to his feet and on seeing the person just wanted to run for his life, she told him the fastest way down.
On thinking of the fastest way up, she moved with the remaining crowd when she felt the entire building shake. Plaster raining for the ceiling and everything falling from its place, the floor swayed for a moment and kept moving slightly back and forth. Once again people were knocked to their feet and the ceiling and the support columns of the room were broken. Seeing her on her knees, Ronnie rushed through the dust towards her and helped her up amidst the rushing crowd. He asked "Connie, are you all right?"
"Better than all right! Look at these." She went and showed him the screen on her digital camera. She went from picture to picture saying, "Look at these pics, they're beautiful!"
"Haven't you been listening? The President has declared a Federal Disaster Area and the Mayor has ordered total evacuation. NYC is now military space, this building especially since King Ghidorah is pulling a Kong on top of the Empire State Building!"
Connie Matsu smiled. "Simple then, we just pull a Driscoll and get to the observation deck. Even better though. If it's just us, we're going to get an exclusive! Get your camera ready Ronnie, I can't be doing your job for you now can I?"
With a scowl on his face, he grabbed her in headlock and began to forcibly drag her away. "Damn it woman, you're not going to file the story if you're dead."
Fighting against his grip, the newswoman began kicking and screaming. "What? Do you have any idea what you're doing Ronnie! We heard that Godzilla and King Ghidorah were going to fight in the Arctic, but Ghidorah's coming means the fight's here. It's going to be the ultimate battle and we have ringside seats!"
"It's the scoop of the century!" she screamed as she was dragged into an elevator.
In Greenland, the chaos was very much the same. Mere hours had passed but in that time, King Ghidorah had destroyed MOGUERA beyond repair and had reduced the best laid trap of mice and men to a smear on the ice. It was this place that Godzilla saw when he finally arrived. In his heart of hearts, he had feared that this would happen, that the humans would not be able to stand against his enemy and now the fear was vindicated. He looked around and saw the last smoldering smoke from various installations, he saw the ravaged upturned earth, and the slush of mud and ice and rock. They were dead, the humans that would have been his comrades in arms were all dead.
The King of the Monster's black head scanned back and forth, looking for any sign of life, looking for his innocent. He saw nothing but twisted chunks of metal, smelled nothing but the sour stink in burning flesh and heard nothing but the howling wind. On seeing this, Godzilla began walking forward, his giant's step causing the earth to quake, and roared in his anger. If Ghidorah had killed his Miki, he would burn down heaven and earth to kill the beast!
"No Godzilla, he hasn't killed me. Not yet anyways."
Puzzled, the King of the Monsters looked down to where he heard that and saw that she was still alive. Looking back and forth with a gargantuan head, he failed to spot anything until he finally caught sight of a tiny speck on the snow. On catching sight of his innocent, he focused his golden eyes and concentrated his thoughts on her. Why was she here, all alone in this ruined place? Why had she not left it with all the other humans?
Directly in front of him, Miki craned her neck as far back as it could and looked upwards at a giant that seemed to tower up into the heavens. In between legs larger than a hundred Greek pillars and feet the size of houses, she spoke her peace. "I'm here because somebody had to stay and tell you what happened. Who better than me? The plan had been to lure King Ghidorah here so that nothing could get in the way of the final battle but found out what we were trying to do and left. He's gone to New York City, a city as vast as Tokyo and with as many people. He knows that this is going to be last battle between you and he and he's determined that if he will die, that he will make as many that can die with him.
"That or he will bring on this world what he did to yours."
Confused, Godzilla's his golden eyes narrowed as he looked on his innocent. Wanting to understand, he cleared his mind to hear whatever thoughts Miki sent to him.
Feeling her insides turn to ice and knowing that it wasn't from the polar winds, Miki Segeusa looked to her friend. "The Elias and I have spoken. They're the avatars of Mothra and Battra; they've taught me, you know this, but there is one other thing. They and their family have been fighting King Ghidorah for more than 65,000,000 years, ever since their mother first Dragon Queen watched over you."
White vapor coming as he snorted, Godzilla was shifted his body, making the frozen sea water in the nooks and crannied of skin crack and the ground beneath him tremble. He did not believe her.
"You must. I've seen your thoughts and memories and theirs. The Great Tyrannosaur saw what was coming and made you to fight King Ghidorah; he told Titania, she told her daughters, and they told me. You hate King Ghidorah for killing the dinosaurs for destroying your world. He plans to destroy Earth again, but this time forever. The day after he destroyed your world, he destroyed his own using his World Extinction Attack; killing all living things and turned a world into a wasteland, it's his deadliest attack. Now he plans to use on Earth but this time it will be even more deadly because he's more dangerous than ever. If he uses it this time then it means the end of all life on Earth forever, no return, no second chance."
Turning his head from side to side, Godzilla's face contorted into a grimace of rage and he roared. To destroy the world he'd been born to guard… Murderous bastard! To die a thousand deaths would not be enough to make King Ghidorah pay!
With a weak and pleading voice, Miki craned her neck up and said, "He's waiting for you. He wants you to come. Godzilla, no matter what it takes you can't let King Ghidorah win, not again, not ever again! These aren't the Monster Wars anymore, they're the Final Wars because this is the end."
The city had piqued his interest for some time as; there had been others but only one other had elicited as much interest in his black heart. The other city had also been on an island and it had the added misfortune to be covered in Godzilla's stink, thus attracting the demon further. In fact, it was only by sheer luck of the draw that it the demon had chosen one city instead of the other.
That other city had been Tokyo, Japan, and its people would never knew how close they came to complete and utter annihilation.
Meanwhile, back in the very heart of America's greatest city, it was a place of chaos. All the surrounding boroughs had been decimated and their peoples, those that yet lived, scattered to the winds. In Manhattan, the survivors were desperately trying to escape as best they could; their best wasn't much though since many bridges and tunnels had been destroyed. Though Manhattan had been spared much physical damage all the rest of the city was a "sea of fire" where "thousands lie dead or dying." Proof was seen in how Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Queens and northeast New Jersey were raging firestorms from which the National Guard was desperately trying to save lives.
It was a strange, frightening time among many strange, frightening times with was at hand. Above the island of Manhattan and the entire New York area, a jet black cloud was forming so thick and completely dark that it left all below it black as midnight at high noon. Neither satellites nor spy planes were able to look through and the few pilots that tried to come in from beneath the cloud were instantly driven mad by the demon by the demon and died. From the darkness above in between bolts of black lightning and crashes of thunder, and there fell what looked like blood, as if it were like red rain. As if it were a slaughter house the entire island stank of decay for all its towers was stained crimson and the waters that surrounded dyed scarlet. With the sky blackened as if it were a sackcloth and for there to fall fire mingled with blood, it did little to improve morale.
With eyes glowing red with hate and watching this like Satan looking down on the Pit of the Damned, King Ghidorah waited. Ignoring the red rain that pitter pattered on him and stained him and ignoring the bolts of lightning that spilt the sky asunder, the devil's hammer looked on his final target. He looked back and forth with sinuous hydra necks from his perch on the Empire State Building and saw that Manhattan was spared his wrath. The island of glass and stone and iron would be the battlefield and so he had left it untouched it so that it would be destroyed in the final cataclysmic collision. As for the humans, they were trying to flee their anthill as fast as they could, men, women, children, every last one of them. The King of Terror saw them do this and he let them escape with their lives; he had bigger prize in mind, a prize that would come to him soon enough.
In the days to follow, there would be sign and portents in the sky that the last day was at hand. It would rain fire and ice and there would be tumult. The seas would boil and deserts would freeze and there would be madness. It would be such for the Four Horsemen would proclaim Armageddon and the final destruction of the human race and of the world that birthed it. They would proclaim that the dragon of the apocalypse, the dragon cast from heaven had come.
Ignoring the red rain that drenched him and the black lightning that resounded around him, the beast closed six eyes and waited. Here it would be decided. Here it would happen. Here would be the final war between Godzilla and King Ghidorah for this was the end.