Chapter Twelve

The two monsters stared each other down for a time that seemed an eternity to all the billions who saw it. The King of the Monsters vs. the King of Terror, everyone had seen the power that the three-headed monster wielded and saw that at two hundred meters tall, was twice as tall as Godzilla. The Great Tyrannosaur's champion was up against a monster that dwarfed even him and against impossible odds but he was the only chance the world had left. The people watching all this in TV sat around their television sets and felt a silence as clear and as hard as diamond. They felt the silence… until it was shattered like glass into a trillion pieces when the monsters charged one another.

When Godzilla collided with his nemesis, his greater weight sent them both surging forwards until they crashed against a huge building. The building fairly exploded from the sheer force of the hit and buried them both; however, the saurian cleared the rubble and began delivering a flurry of claw strikes across the enemy's chest. Though on his back, King Ghidorah rallied his strength and he kicked Godzilla into the air where he went flying several hundred feet before he crashed halfway up into a tower. Relishing the sweet thrill of battle, the demon ran as fast as he could to intercept the fallen reptile but he was tail swept by the monster, silver spines cutting into golden flesh.

The Prince of Skyllans wailed at this and squeezed his six eyes shut and the hero took advantage of this getting up, grabbing his enemy. He heaved his foe upwards and leapt into the air executing an aerial roundhouse tail whip that cracked bones and bruised pseudo-flesh. All this and before it even fell to the ground, the saurian lowered his skull and charged, delivering a ram head blow as the demon fell. King Ghidorah was sent crashing against a one hundred story tall wall of concrete and prostrate was struck by a shop that Godzilla had torn up from the roots to throw at him. Thinking to press the assault, the last of the Supersaurs rushed to the rubble but the ensuing explosion sent him back.

Rocketing upwards, King Ghidorah took advantage of something he had that the saurian did not: flight. Though confined by the skyscrapers, he began a series of diving attacks slashing with his talons and tearing with his spiked clubs of his tail. Again and again, talon and spine struck home tearing open flesh and spilling blood; again and again, the Supersaur snapped his jaws and leapt as high as he could to strike but it was not enough. Enraged that he could not strike his enemy, Godzilla picked up a boulder sized piece of rubble into the sky at his hated foe.

However, it was of no use as King Ghidorah who hovered in the sky grabbed it with his talons and threw it back. Then, the oddest thing happened; as if playing a perverse game of pong, Godzilla caught it and threw it back! Even so, the three-headed monster anticipated it and—not wanting to play rock pong—shot up over the skyscrapers to dodge it. (The piece of rubble did however succeed in destroying Madison Square Garden where it crashed… and in starting a fire that soon had the whole Garment District ablaze.)

Seeing the advantage he had, King Ghidorah used the air to full advantage and death dived to deliver a flying kick but Godzilla saw it and ducked to the ground, with one hand to the asphalt turning beneath the foe to get behind and wrap a tail around each arm. Before the demon could react, the Great Tyrannosaur's champion was spinning him around in circles by his tails. With his tail stretched out behind him, faster and faster the circle went until Godzilla released the beast and sent him flying across and crashing through several buildings, before landing, sprawled, atop Radio City Music Hall. Godzilla charged forwards, crashing through Macy's, Gimbel's, Times Square, and anything else that got in his way headfirst, until he was in sight of his foe.

By that time the devil's hammer was on his feet and trembling with a rage beyond what even he could remember at such humiliation. Six eyes glowing red with hatred and wings crackling with electricity, three mouths shot out a barrage of Gravity Beams that destroyed all they touched before blasting a huge chunk of flesh from Godzilla's chest and sent him on his back. Ignoring the pain from a wound that would not heal, he got up and roared his fury at this; they had both understood, no powers! The demon had no honor!

As King Ghidorah furiously fired a volley of fireballs and a barrage of Crimson Lightning, it was made clear that he felt that honor should be saved for someone who cared!

Godzilla covered his face with his arms and returned fire with an Atomic Ray the first chance he had striking the evil one in the gut. It was followed by a barrage of close up claw strikes and punches; the favor was returned by wing rakes and hydra bites. When one of the needle teeth hit home and left Godzilla bleeding at the throat, Miki winced. She and her friends were easily watching all this from their building in Greenwich Village (the fight had already destroyed anything that might get in their line of sight) and had been so engrossed that they failed to notice anything else. Thus Miss Segeusa alone saw that when she touched her throat where she felt it her hand came away with blood even though there was no wound. …She was bleeding where Godzilla had been cut. She gasped as she saw this and when she did, Kyle turned around and saw it as well. He and Miki looked at the bloody hand and they locked gazes because they realized that for better or worse, they'd be there until the end.

The people of the world were watching this courtesy of Connie Matsu, the only people with a better view point were the people at the UN Head Quarters thanks to their flying camera drones. Not even the president had such a view since he had forbidden US forces from doing anything, though at the moment he wished he hadn't. At that moment he was at his Boston based White House III watching the battle of the gods on TV like everyone else. Being that he had gone out of his way to make New York his capital, he was fairly whimpering as landmark after landmark was destroyed as the two monsters waged a desperate running duel across the isle.

The battle having gone on for some time now, two monsters left the Theater District and from there had gone north to the West Side where they smashed flat several old theaters, opera houses, and universities before cutting through Central Park. Without any buildings to get in their way, the battle quickly reached such a fever pitch there that the forests and hills of the emerald green picture book park were razed straight to the schist bedrock in which Captain Santos and his team had Land MOGUERA dig in and hide. Soon enough, the emerald rectangle set in a grid of gray stone, was incinerated to black ash, though at one point, Emmerich could have sworn that he saw Godzilla pick up and use Cleopatra's Needle as a club. With the park left a firestorm, the battle broke through the northern end of the inferno into Harlem; soon enough the historic neighborhood was destroyed and the battle went south from there.

America's President and his Vice President were watching all this, keeping themselves informed as leaders should but they were able to do no more. Even if Emmerich hadn't withdrawn all forces, those forces wouldn't have been able to do anything more than wait as they were doing now. It reached a crescendo when a stray Triple Beam from Ghidorah shot through so many buildings to strike the base of the Twin Towers making them both fall and take down several buildings of the financial district with them. At that the self proclaimed most powerful man on Earth was able to do nothing but cry over his late White House II.

"My office," he sobbed. "I decorated my corner office in the north tower myself and now it's… gone!" Weeping he looked to his grim and stern Vice President and saw he was unmoved. Emmerich's mind barely registered when he heard the ring of his cell-phone; pulling it out of his coat, he said, "I'm here."

"Yeah… yeah… what…! I understand…" After listening to the words, he let the phone fall from his fingers. He then fell back to his chair and trembled like a little boy scared that the under bed monsters would get him. "Frank, I don't get it. First the house I grew up in is destroyed by a wildfire, then my old company's headquarters is destroyed by an earthquake, and now I get a phone call that says my Texas ranch was flattened by a tidal wave… not to mention that that three-headed monster has now destroyed the White House… twice!"

"Its not fair," the man whimpered with quivering lips. "Why should natural disasters happen more to me than to anyone else… It's not fair."

On hearing those words, Franklin Smith, the Vice President of the United States could take no more and he got up from his seat. He looked down to the pathetic, whining hunched forward wreck that he called master with disgust and cursed himself for ever kneeling to him. He looked down and said, "The world is getting its revenge."

On hearing that, Devlin Emmerich was roused from his stupor by confusion; he looked towards his right hand man not understanding what he meant. "What? I don't get it… Frank, have you really gone crazy?"

Fists clenching and unclenching, Smith fought the urge to hit the man across the face. "No, I'm not crazy," he hissed. "You're the only one here who's crazy!"

Unwilling to believe what he heard, the President just stood there unmoving and silent for a time before it finally registered. "You called me… that's it Frank… y-you're fired." He shot his hand towards the door and yelled, "GET OUT!"

Stopped by his master's arm, Smith got on Emmerich's face and said, "Oh, you don't have to ask me to leave! Everything you have will be destroyed and you know why? It's because all you've ever done is disgrace the world and now its getting its revenge!" With that he shoved the arm out of the way and stormed out of the room angrily slamming the door behind him.

Now alone in room, Emmerich just stared off into space and stood in silence for a time before whipping around to face his enemies, real and imagined. "The world, eh?" He looked up and spat. "So world, Earth, Nature, Fate, Karma, God… you want your revenge? Fine with me, I don't care!"

His energy spent, he fell to the floor on his hands and knees and drunkenly mumbled, "… I don't care…"

Openly bawling, he curled up into a ball and cried, "… I don't care…!"

In Harlem, the black neighborhood was burned black by various energy beams and amidst the firestorm, the battle was unabated for as if they were demons at the gates of Hell, Godzilla and King Ghidorah, made war against one another within an inferno destroying Apollo Theater and so much more. The last Supersaur rallied all his strength delivered a claw swipe that left three ugly gashes across a golden chest. Followed by another equally savage swipe that tore open the chest and a punch that staggered the enemy, he grabbed golden wings delivered a head but that almost broke the base of the middle neck. Godzilla lunged forwards to deliver a crippling bite to the enemy's wings but the Prince of Skyllans kicked the saurian in the gut, knocking the wind from him and delivered a round house tail whip tearing open flesh all the way to the bone with twin spiked clubs.

As gore splattered everywhere Godzilla roared in pain and anger, but his was the strength of anger and loosed a Red Spiral Ray so powerful that it blasted a hole straight through the right wing, acid blood showering the land and burning the saurian. Fueled by sheer rage, King Ghidorah lashed with his heads to batter his enemy, leaving bruise and gash to tear open his face. However that was not enough and the Star of Doom delivered a flurry of bites from all three heads, hundreds of needle teeth injecting venom laced with their user's malice and cruelty.

It seemed that such an attack would stagger even Godzilla but he did not weaken and delivered a double hammer strike struck at the demon's wings. He stepped back a distance and then ran at full speed, thereupon delivering a flying kick with both legs, his tail dragging behind him. It struck the enemy and it left him on his knees; injured and unwilling to believe what had happened, the King of Terror was in further disbelief as he saw the saurian wounds close themselves. As they battled southwards out of Harlem, the fight continued in intensity but the confusion increased as well for the demon. What had happened was impossible, beneath the death sphere above the city, it had been happening all through the battle but neither of their regenerative powers should work! It was in this state of confusion that, in El Barrio, or Spanish Harlem, Godzilla fired his Atomic Ray, slamming Ghidorah through the buildings of Lexington Avenue and all the way to twenty feet deep into the pavement of Second Avenue. The two beasts continued to battle sending pieces of rubble flying, even as the destruction and the fire kept spreading.

The three-headed monster did not know what happened and neither did Kyle; confused, he turned towards Miki to ask. "Miki did you see what hap-" he gasped. He saw that Miki was on trembling on her knees and saw that she was she was cut all over her face and that her arms were purple. The din of battle filling the air, he rushed to her and said, "Miki what happened to you?"

As he helped her to her wobbly feet, she coughed and a trickle of blood came from her lips. "Godzilla was going to fall… I gave him my strength and I took his pain."

"What the-what do you mean!" Appalled, he said, "You can't do this… you'll get killed."

Now more steady, Miki shook her head. "We don't have a choice Kyle, this is bigger than both of us."

He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. "You have to stop this! Dammit, why do you share that freak's suffering?"

Tears freely streaming from her grimy, tired face she shot a look and retorted, "He needs me! He needs my strength to keep fighting for all of us!"

"Miki I don't believe what you're say-" The whole building trembled as if in an earthquake from a stray elephant sized piece of rubble that was sent flying across the island from the monster's battle. The piece of rubble hit and the damage caused was so great that the ground gave way beneath Kyle and Miki's feet, leaving dust thicker than Skull Island fog to fly everywhere. Rubble and rock cutting and scraping her all the while the psychic desperately managed to scramble back to the broken ledge, clinging for dear life with her injured right hand and holding onto something else with the other.

On seeing that, Matsu broke off her reporting and Brown left the still running camera on the wide ledge and the shaken pair rushed to Segeusa's aid. The two grabbed her by her right arm and Connie said, "Miki give us your other arm!"

"I can't, not with Kyle!"

Ronnie looked past her and saw that she was holding onto Kyle Martin with her left hand as he dangled above a several story drop. He yelled, "My God!" but the words he would have follow it were said by another.

"Miki what are you doing!"

Barely holding onto him by his wrist she looked down to the man and angrily yelled, "What do you think I'm doing, I'm saving you! Now give me your other hand!"

Matsu said, "Listen to the lady, we can pull you up."

Seeing Miki slip from Ronnie and Connie's grip due to their combined weight, Kyle said, "You got to let me go or else you'll fall!"

Trembling and straining, Miki felt herself begin to slip but she would not yield, so strong was her love. "Then we'll both die, but I won't let you go!"

With that, a sad and haunted look came across Martin's face as he saw Ronnie and Connie struggling to keep them both up. He heard their shoes scrape against the dust and gravel and saw Miki's hand slip further and further from their grasps and knew that his weight would very soon take her down with him. "Then I guess there's only one thing left to do. Sorry baby." With that, he twisted out of her grasp and fell and the dusty haze below.

"KYLE!" Miki screamed as she reached for his falling form. Then without thought and without reason she used a psychic burst to send the reporters flying back and herself shooting down. Scraped and grimy, Ronnie and Connie got up and rushed to the side but they were already too late. Sick and guilty that she hadn't been able to do more, Matsu fell to her hands and knees and tried to fight back tears as she looked to the cloud of smoke and dust that surrounded the building. She tried to fight back her tears and she failed.

However, as she looked at the sooty haze, she saw that it was beginning to swirl and twist. She shook her head and said, "No… no way…" But it was indeed so as the psychic rose up transfigured from the world below, covered in a shimmering aura of golden light. With head tilted back and eyes closed, her arms were outstretched as she focused her power; rallying that energy, she levitated herself upwards and her love. With Kyle curled into a little ball, they both came to rest on the building though when foot touched ground the would be goddess would have fallen on her face if Connie didn't steady her.

Dizzy and gasping for breath, Miki looked to Connie and smiled before looking to Kyle and saying, "I said I wouldn't let you go."

Thoroughly shaken, Kyle Martin looked to her and asked, "What did you do, what happened?"

"Telekinesis." The trembling psychic wiped away the bloody nose that came as a result of the exertion and flashed an impish smirk as she shrugged. "I just never tried it on something so big before."

Her boyfriend rolled his eyes and got up. "You really are amazing, you know that?"

On turning to see that Ronnie and Connie were back to filming and reporting, Miki said, "C'mon, we still have plenty to do." With that, Segeusa limped off with Kyle's help and went back to see the battle.

And indeed the battle was on. Miki had chosen the building because she had seen the very immediate future and had seen that it was one of the very few buildings that would not be destroyed. That was not to say it was safe, far from it; it was in fact only the least dangerous, which was no guarantee that the people on it would survive. Proof of that was seen in how around much of the island there was smoke and fire and danger and all around the island there were heard the roars of a battle so great that the very Earth trembled. Yet for a moment, the battle was stilled and the Earth was unshaken.

Beneath Central Park, were some of the only men left on Manhattan. In the cockpit, Captain Santos looked to the main screen and saw that Land MOGUERA was nestled deep in supposedly unbreakable bedrock. Smiling at how easily the tank had been able to do in escaping from the battle, he smiled and said, "Yoshizawa knows how to build them."

Glen turned around from his gunner's seat. "What was that, sir?"

"Nothing soldier," he said as he began pounding the keys to get a visual back on the screen. As the imaging devices went back on line, a three dimensional image of bedrock, buildings, and asphalt appeared in line drawings as if it were an image of ship and sand in water. (And, from all the ruined foundations, they also saw how many skyscrapers had been toppled…) On seeing they were too deep in solid stone to get a message out, the man said, "Fuji, get us up to the surface."

"Sir, yes sir." Moving it like a fish in water or a bird through air, the monster tank's incredibly hard drill—harder than diamond—cut through the stone with minimal difficulty. Though they all felt that their teeth would shake out, they made it to the surface soon enough, and on hitting the surface Santos opened the solid metal shutters that covered the windows. However, they were unprepared for what they saw. They came up through the mud and silt of Turtle Pond and then the muddy Land MOGUERA rumbled past the remains of Belvedere Castle. As the vehicle rumbled along on its treads to a stop, they saw Central Park was in flames and every tree and building was reduced to a morass of ash, mud, and rubble. As for the buildings surrounding the park fared no better because there were no buildings! Though he knew the city was expendable and he knew that he had to stay out of the Supersaur's way, he cursed himself for not being able to attack King Ghidorah and make him pay.

Wanting to what little he could, Santos checked all scanners and saw that the two monsters were no longer there. Wanting to know where they were, he got on the communicator and patched through to Gryphon. "Tsujimori, this is Captain Santos. Do you read me, over?"

"We read you, loud and clear, over."

"We've just come up from underground and Godzilla's not here. Where're the monsters?"

Looking out from her canard winged plane as it flew over the Upper East Side she caught sight of the saurian. The woman said, "I see him about a mile northeast of you."

In the Upper East Side as Tsujimori had said, Godzilla was walking through the Manhattan neighborhood of Yorkville. He towered over the cramped apartments that dominated the area and had a good view of the once German speaking area but as he tilted his head back to scent the air, he couldn't smell anything. The demon had flown away from the king's sight but he knew that the unholy beast had not fled; the Star of Doom was near and would be destroyed! Such fury had been so ever since Godzilla had arrived and smelt Kong's stink all over Ghidorah from his having been the Empire State Building. It added his sick rage towards Kong towards that he had of the demon; it was greater than ever with how the ape had saved his life at the start of the Monster Wars, oh he'd kill the ape for that! For now, however, the saurian kept walking down East 94th street, near the river, his ears and eyes looking for anything to tell him where the enemy was.

Then all of a sudden, he felt the lancing pain of something stab him through the back as he was heaved upwards and heard the lunatic cry of electronic warble. Crying in indignation as he writhed like a fish on a hook and was hauled well thousands of feet into the air, though the demon straining his strength to the utmost. Godzilla furiously swiped back and tried to reach Ghidorah yet it was not enough and the fiend lunged both heads forwards to impale needle teeth on the jelly of his foe's eyes and slam the twin club tails into his throat, poisonous spikes leaving ugly wounds. Scarlet staining and a roar tearing the sky, the King of the Monsters exerted all his strength and loosed an Atomic Shockwave that blasted the three-headed monster off from him. Screaming at the burns and the paint that covered him, Ghidorah released his enemy as he was thrown back but he felt himself pulled downwards as a black scaled hand grasped his ankle.

From thousands of feet up and so high that the five boroughs and beyond looked like a postage stamp, the two monsters fell downwards like shooting stars. King Ghidorah tried to break from Godzilla's grip but, though near blind and in agony, he broke the wicked one's ankle and loosed a Red Spiral Ray to blast the wing shoulder joint to bloody pieces leaving both to spiral down in freefall. At the speeds they were going, when they finally crashed into the darkened waters below, they fit it as if it were a solid wall. For a time, there was no movement save the normal roiling waters of Hell Gate where the two monsters fell. Then, as if they were the heads of Scylla coming from out the Greek surf, three demonic heads burst from the darkened night waters atop three twisting serpentine necks and seemingly gasped for breath. Forcing his aching wings beyond what they could in the mad twisting waters, King Ghidorah tried to escape from his enemy's domain as a whirlpool began to spin around him. However, the demon's struggles in the whirlpool were of no use when the scaly black hand of Charybdis grasped the middle neck in a choking movement from behind and pulled him back in.

With harsh salt and cold water lashing at his wounds even as the air shot out in bubbles from his enemy's throat, the demon was dragged under. Now they were in Godzilla's territory not Ghidorah's and the King of the Monsters intended to make full use of it. Blind in the lightless waters, the mad one felt the salt burn his gaping oozing wound and saw a red light in the darkness and screamed without sound as he felt an agony lance through his torn, gory shoulder. Boiled alive as the scalding water bubbled around him, he screamed again as the same light came and the same pain strike him through the chest. In this state, he had naught but the slightest warning as an enormous black shape rushed towards him and struck head on.

The three-headed monster felt his internal organs begin to rupture at the battering and felt his thigh sliced by the spines of a tail whip. He seemed in dire straights but though he was nearly blind, Ghidorah could see without sight just as his enemy could and tracked his foe through the waters by radiation. Tracking his foe, he fired a Triple Beam through the water but it was not enough and Godzilla effortlessly dodged it in the murky waters between Wards Island and Queens. Thinking to use a scatter shot attack, King Ghidorah loosed a surge of electrical energy through his skin; amplified by the water, it hit everything, including Godzilla.

Weak against electricity, Godzilla spasmed in agony as the voltage lanced through him. Drawing strength from the sweet agony, the evil one concentrated his power as he used his wings to fly through the water to strike at the helpless foe. Though the fluid slowed him, he raked with his wings and delivered bite after bite, the Taint leaving each wound poisoned; at this it was seen the though the wounds healed they were healing at a far slower rate. Even so, Godzilla pushed through the pain and wheeled back in the black water to tear at King Ghidorah's belly with his bare teeth.

The demon lurched in the water and placed his legs on the saurian's belly, pushing him away and tearing from himself the piece of pseudo-flesh that the saurian held in his teeth, yellow blood poisoning the water around him in a yellow cloud. The acid cloud enveloped everything and that included Godzilla, leaving him burned and blind. Taking advantage of that, King Ghidorah used reversed Gravity Beams so send him shooting out of the water like a rocket. Exploding out of the water and his body exploding in agony, the nearly insensate Champion of the Great Tyrannosaur went flying until he crashed in west Queens and made the ground quake so that tsunami waves washed ashore on Ward's Island.

With eyes and skin burning from the poison, Godzilla propped himself on an elbow and began vomiting a mixture of water and blood. With massive chest heaving and water sheeting from his colossal frame, he ignored the grass and trees that was his surroundings and looked around to see where the enemy lay. He looked around and on turning southeast, he saw that the freak had not followed up his attack but was instead marshalling his strength for a renewed attack. The evil one was on the Queensboro Bridge, making the structure tremble and sway crack under weight it was never meant to bare.

What the saurian saw was that the demon was crossing Roosevelt Island and trying to get to cover offered by the buildings of Manhattan. Then, more out of spite than anything else, Godzilla blasted the bridge with his Atomic Ray and sent the bridge crumbling beneath the Ghidorah and sending the beast tumbling into the waters below. With that, the King of the Monsters, though burned and bloody and raw all over, ran as fast as he could and charged the river. At the edge, he finally executed a colossal flying leap that seemed to last forever as a never-ending stream of flesh was sent into the black water below to hunt for his prey.

Washing up from the East River at FDR Drive and surrounded by ruined falling buildings and a raging inferno, King Ghidorah was mortally injured. Far less graceful on the ground than he would ever be on the sky, he had trouble just getting up and the yellow blood that spilled from his wounds made the broken asphalt sizzle and burn. He drew strength from his anger because in facing his enemies, it was with his hatred that destroyed them but now it was to finally drive him to madness.