Chapter Fifteen
His mind gone, his body dieing from having taken the death power the way he had, King Ghidorah pranced around like an idiot among the ruins of Manhattan, slipping on loose rubble here and there. It was all over, amidst the rubble strewn crater, the two-hundred meter tall cretin had won! Yet as all rational though rotted away in madness, he felt the ground beneath him tremble. Had the demon still had his wits about him, he would have known what that would have meant and would have prepared a defense. Even so, the evil one continued his playtime, shifting from foot to foot, waving his necks about.
That was when a Red Ray blasted him from behind, sending him flying forwards and leaving his back a flaming mass of blood and blisters. In agony, Ghidorah tried to get up but just as he was about to do it, a crushing had grabbed his middle neck and sent his crashing heads first into a flaming, crumbling building. Nearly insensate, the three-headed monster struggled to get up and wondered who it was that could have done this.
He struggled to his broken feet and looked around, not knowing what he'd find and he saw Godzilla, King of the Monsters! Ghidorah's three heads lashed about this way and that in confusion; this was impossible, Godzilla was dead! The last of the Supersaurs bared his fangs and growled; well then, that just meant that he didn't stay "dead" then, didn't it? Amidst the flame and ruin, amidst the dead and broken city, amidst the thunder and lightning that split the darkness around them, they looked on each other, the hero asking for one last round and the villain, gladly obliging.
Fast as lightning, King Ghidorah loosed a Triple Beam against his foe but the Great One's champion fired a Red Spiral Ray. The beams locked and each monster continued the fire with all his strength until it caused an explosion that sent the demon staggering back with a shower of sparks. Unfazed, the Prince of Skyllans let out his wings and loosed a barrage of Crimson Lightning but Godzilla blocked it and countered with a Atomic Shockwave. King Ghidorah was blasted backwards by it but immediately leapt up to appease his insane hatred and have his revenge!
In the air, and flapping his wings, he dodged his enemy's fire this way and that went up several thousands of feet into the air before going into a death dive. Barrel rolling past each attack, the Devil's Hammer pivoted his head back and slammed his taloned feet into Godzilla knocking him on his back. Before he could get up, the evil one leapt on his chest with all the thousands of tons he could bring to bear. King Ghidorah kept stomping, up and down, making the island shake, making the ground tremble, making organs rupture. Feeling his ribs break, Godzilla drove through the pain and spun beneath the demon making him fall off and then leaping on top of the demon to half claw swipe, half punch the beast into submission.
"I don't believe it folks, Godzilla's back and he's cleaning house! The last we saw just moments ago, he was dying and it looked like that was it but as you can see…" A smiling Connie Matsu faced the audience and gestured behind herself with her free hand to the two battling monsters. "… That is not the case now! The pair of die-hards behind me-" she almost lost her balance as the battle made the building shake but steadied herself "-as I was saying… the, the pair of die-hards behind me are taking it to the limit this time because this time they're playing for keeps! No rules, no strategy, it's going to whoever wants it the most! It's a street fight! It's a gutter war! No holds barred in New York!"
As for the people watching they could see when Ronnie zoomed in that Godzilla wasn't kidding about playing for keeps. Stomping his foot on Ghidorah's necks again and again trying to snap it, the King of the Monsters used all his strength. However when he slammed his foot the last time, he was electrocuted as a billion volts ran through the demon's skin and leave the hero spasming in electric shock. In that pain, he roared.
Dizzy from the hated agony of electric shock, he was temporarily unaware when King Ghidorah got up and once again tried to use the advantage of the sky. Even so, the rage cleared Godzilla's mind as he saw the demon ascend; determined to not let him escape, he leapt up and caught hold. Now high above the ruined, flaming battlefield, the saurian hung on with his left arm even as bit his with teeth and struck with his right; feeling his own life ebbing, the Bane of Life felt every blow count double. Struggling in the air to cast his enemy off until Godzilla hung from the demon's middle neck by his teeth, he was finally thrown off, crashing to the ground.
Feeling his bones break once again, the Supersaur, ignored the pain but just as was about to stand, he was slammed to the ground when King Ghidorah slammed on him like a gold brick thrown from a mile high. Kicking out, Godzilla fired a Red Spiral Ray and blasted as fiercely as he could through both of the demon's wings. King Ghidorah wailed and squeezed six eyes shut as his emaciated wings were torn like tissue paper and skin was splattered everywhere. Unseen by the agonized devil, the Great One's champion scrambled to his feet and, filled with righteous wrath, unleashed a hellish firestorm of red and yellow that consumed the sinner and vaporized everything within one hundred fifty feet of him.
Unrelenting in his fury and unceasing in his power, Godzilla poured all his strength into it until his back spines and ray flared so bright that everything around was bleached white. The shimmering air ionized and everything solid vaporized, even the rubble around them burst into flame and broken asphalt below turned to bubbling tar from the heat. He kept it up until he could give no more and stopped, his chest heaving and his smoking spines a dull, cherry red. Before him, there was a smoke choked inferno whose thick black clouds made in impossible for anything to see; Ghidorah couldn't have survived, he couldn't. Even so he didn't lower his guard for a second, but he nonetheless couldn't believe it when King Ghidorah, on fire, charged him, blasting and screaming all Gravity Beams the while! Completely covered from heads to toes in raging one hundred foot high flames, the charred and blackened attacking monster seemed to scream die, die, die!
Countering with fang and claw, Godzilla knew that the three-headed monster had gone completely insane! As for the evil one, he no longer cared about destroying all life or even just Earth just as long as he killed Godzilla! As if it were and not his mate who was the Fire Monster, plunged into the flames delivering a bone shattering punch to the evil one's belly, feeling blood and puss make it slippery. Each punch striking more and more, King Ghidorah was punched up off the ground and black bile poured from his three mouths as this happened. Thinking to retake the offensive, the demon leapt back to deliver a roundhouse tail whip but Godzilla caught on to that tired old attack and dodged the spiny clubs before grabbing them and using his enemy's own momentum to spin him around.
After seeing the burned and blistered Ghidorah buried underneath a mound of rubble, the King of the Monsters afforded himself a brief respite, looking to where poisoned spikes had left his hands bloody gashes. Yet even as he did so, the wounds began to close themselves. Godzilla's throat rumbled in approval at this and he turned back to where the rubble was shifting. At that, everything seemed to shake and the rubble flew off in an explosion and the demon simultaneously delivered a Triple Beam and Crimson Lightning. Godzilla blocked it, however, and as he growled, he prepared to meet the demon's last suicidal charge.
Everyone watching saw that the King of the Monsters wasn't moving or doing anything at all as Ghidorah rushed him; at that many screamed for him to do something, anything! When the evil one came within striking distance he did; the three-headed monster lunged forwards to bite with all three heads but Godzilla, cool as ice, side stepped it. Then, in a moment that nobody would ever forget, he took a hold of Ghidorah's necks to deliver a shoulder throw! The demon was sent crashing forwards through the air so hard that he was driven fifty feet deep into the broken asphalt.
The people couldn't believe it; it was as if Godzilla were a pro-wrestler delivering a suplex or something! They were even more in disbelief when he grabbed the three-headed monster as he struggled to get up and did it again. And again! At that, the people in UN HQ got up in disbelief with dropping jaws and everything seemed to go in slow motion for them. It was as they saw the hero roar with all his might as he sent King Ghidorah flying over his shoulder and slamming against the gravel before him with all his might. (However, that last strike made plaster fall from the ceiling and had people sprawling on the ground.)
As the battle reached a fever pitch amongst the flaming ruins, neither combatant wished to back down, Ghidorah striking with his three heads and Godzilla striking with his claws. It was the battle of good and evil, light vs. darkness, right vs. wrong, that raged throughout the cosmos and in every soul. For survival of the world, it would all be decided there and tonight, there'd be no turning back. Tonight, it would end forever!
It was then in one final suicidal attack that would kill the both of them, that the burned, bloodied, broken, three-headed monster rushed forwards and clamped his outer head's jaws onto his enemy's hands, impaling his needle teeth through bone flesh even as his middle neck wrapped itself around the enemy's throat. King Ghidorah did this even as he wrapped his wings around his hated enemy's body, point blank Crimson Lightning striking all the while. He did this even as he loosed electrical charges through his body to strike.
With that and attacked from every direction, Godzilla roared in agony or would have roared in agony if he had been able to as he was throttled. Gasping for air and receiving none, the King of the Monsters shook and tried to throw King Ghidorah off of him but was unable to. Feeling poison leak through his pierced hands and the diabolic Taint weakening him, the Great Tyrannosaur's champion grew weaker. Kicking with legs and thrashing with his tail, Godzilla this was naught but madness! For Ghidorah to use his Taint now was suicide!
The three-headed monster knew this but he didn't care; he didn't care about anything anymore! He would die only after Godzilla died with him! Dizzy and nauseous, the saurian fought with all he had but it wasn't enough as black lightning bolt after black lightning bolt fell from the Death Sphere and empowered the demon and strengthened his poisons. Now frothing at the mouth and futilely trying to use his ray, the Supersaur felt his own strength waning as the death power weakened him.
From the broken building they were reporting on, Ronnie's camera hand trembled even as Connie's strong voice shook. "I don't, I… don't believe it folks… Godzilla's losing! …C'mon Godzilla you've gotta win!"
At that everyone around the world from Secretary General Santos seeing it at the UN base's super screen to some redneck hearing it on a half busted radio heard this and grew silent. They knew what this meant and dared not even breath; then, in that silence, they whispered and they whispered that same thing. "Don't give up Godzilla, we believe you. You're our hero, we believe in you!"
In Ireland, a young couple on their couch in their apartment was watching this on TV. The man ran his hand over his wife's swollen womb. For their future child they said, "We believe in you."
In Canada, a grizzled old man and his adult children gathered together in his trailer were hearing it all on their radio. The old man's hand's trembling and he threw aside his jug of moonshine, breaking it and spilling its alcohol. For the family he had cared for, for so long, he said, "Dammit, I believe in you!"
In Japan, a small boy was huddled at the screen along with his pensive parents. The boy was holding a stuffed Godzilla toy and he held it tight. For his parents and his brothers he said, "I believe in you."
All over the world people saw this and for their friends, for their universe, they shouted, "We believe in you! We believe in you!" He heard their words, somehow he heard their thoughts. They were the same thoughts that the dinosaurs gave him so long ago; he'd failed before but he daren't fail again, not ever again! He couldn't let Ghidorah win; everyone was counting on him!
Straining and twisting, he was driven by their faith—the faith that so many had had in him for so long—and was filled with the holy fire that the Dragon had bestowed upon him and with the Dragon Fire summoned all his strength to deliver an Atomic Shockwave the likes of which shook the heavens and shook the earth! A searing, electric blue light going out in all directions, the now mutilated, bloodied, wounded, burned, and gashed, King Ghidorah was blasted away. He then crashed with the thud of broken bones, blistered and seared by the explosion of goodness.
The area around him clouded and the ground as smooth and clear as glass, Godzilla looked to where his opponent lay. On his back, the three-headed monster looked up in disgust at his now advancing adversary as the hero was enveloped in a halo of light made of virtue and truth. All three of them burned and blistered with broken gums bleeding, King Ghidorah shook his heads as he felt hatred beyond anything even he deemed possible. Before, he had been able to respect Godzilla as a worthy adversary for his ferocity and strength but now he had turned traitor! He wielded Leviathan's dragon fire! He was fighting no longer for the sake of sweet vengeance but for the sake of accursed justice! No more, no more!
With that the devil's hammer half ran, half stumbled, away from the battlefield to get enough speed. With that, he painfully stretched out his burnt, torn, broken wings as he rose into the air to kill Godzilla, kill him once and for all!
It was seen by all that the bloody and battered three-headed monster was clumsily flying from Godzilla with broken wings and not turning back. With what seemed a retreat, it looked like the Monster Wars were finished as the beast left the island that had been very nearly destroyed save for the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and a few others. He left the broken island and flew away into the sky on ruined wings as fast as he could until he was little more than a receding speck. Many people watching this interpreted it as something good, Matsu among them. "My God IT'S OVER! WE WON!" Whipping around to face her audience and giddy with joy, she said, "Thank God it's finally over, King Ghidorah is beat and he's running… oh no…"
Yet it was not so because very soon all realized what was happening. In the underground UN Base, the people there were watching this in silence, refusing to believe it would end so easily but with Miki Segeusa she craned her neck to the sky and slowly shook her head. The fears of those few that dared not believe that it was over were sadly soon confirmed as King Ghidorah slowed in his ascent, leaving himself stationary in midair. Thousands of feet above the broken city, the demon was a speck in how far away he was from the Death Sphere when he turned around beneath the swirling, black, lightning spewing clouds. There, he opened three broken mouths and spat three weakened, shaking Gravity Beams to wrap around it and pull it up with him as he rocketed upwards.
Going bone white and barely able to keep from falling from her knees, the trembling reporter turned around to face the trembling camera and address her viewers. Unable to keep the fear from her voice, she said, "This, this is it people… The Death Sphere… h-he's g-going to use his World Extinction Attack… he's going to use it now and… a-and kill us all, kill us the way he killed his own creators… NOOO!"
With that, every thing that could fly was in the air shooting with every last ounce of ordinance it had but as they desperately raced faster and faster and higher and higher it was seen that it was no where near enough. It seemed as if the entire Aerial Defense Force of Earth was there as aircraft after aircraft delivered bullets, missiles, rockets, energy beams and more. Frantic pilots suicidally crashed their planes against the demon but he ignored it as he went higher and higher past the clouds. Squadrons of attack choppers, fighter planes, and maser jets kept making pass after pass higher than their capabilities could allow but King Ghidorah left them out of range, cackling maniacally all the while. As they stalled and spun back out of control from futile climbs, blue beams—and then red beams—of searing energy shot past the planes blasting through the clouds from on the ground and ionizing the air it passed through. Not sparing a single glance to see that Godzilla was doing this, the devil that rode on golden wings dodged and weaved, every shot missing him.
Remotely viewing all this from her vantage point on the streets of Manhattan, Miki screamed, "Somebody stop him!" But nobody could. Faster and faster, the devil's hammer soared through the upper atmosphere until he left the sky behind him and reached the icy blackness of space. Above the blue curve of the Earth, King Ghidorah was amidst the stars and the moon when he turned around and stopped, looking at the wretched planet below. With that, he hurled his necks backwards and the Death Sphere with them. All the defeats thrust on him by the miserable, backsliding mud hole called Earth were intolerable but now it would end, now it would ALL end, now and forever! Holding the bloated, red and black energy pulsating Death Sphere above him he seemingly said, MAGGOTS, WATCH YOUR FUTURES END!
Far below all this on the shattered streets of Manhattan, the King of the Monsters saw this and charged his power, as if he were saying, NOT TODAY! With that the Great One's champion released the full force of the Dragon Fire bestowed on him-a force so powerful he could barely fight the recoil with his tail-and it shot through the sky, through space, as a beam of red fire laced with yellow lightning until it struck the demon. But when it struck the demon, it exploded with the force of a super nova! Blood and bone flying everywhere and enveloped in the Dragon Fire that blasted all the way through him, King Ghidorah was like a fly caught in a nuclear explosion as he was enveloped in an inferno seen across two continents. As the fire passed, he just seemed to hover there for a time before he slowly, ever so slowly, began to fall, accelerating all the while. Like a meteor, the Star of Doom the demon fell faster and faster, accelerating all the while, friction heat igniting into a fireball that peeling his skin all the while. It was intolerable…!
On the ground, people past the black cloud over New York who saw this on TV rushed out side and looked up whereon they saw the brightest light they'd ever seen light up the entire night sky. Not only they but past them beneath a blackened sun and a darkened moon everyone looked at their screens; they all saw this and saw something else. As the blinding glare of the explosion died down it was replaced with what looked to be a pin prick of light. On seeing it the eyes went wide and the world held its breath as it saw what seemed like a comet falling to the ground because they all knew what was going to happen. In his underground UN Base, Santos saw the image that the camera drones broadcast from directly up on the main mega screen and said, "… 'for 'twas I who beheld Satan when he fell from heaven like lightning…' …My God, everyone brace for impact!"
Like the comets of old that presaged disaster, the shooting star fell glowed brighter and more fiercely as it came closer and closer until it hit. In the end, nobody knew if it was the will of God or just random chance that it happened, but it all ended when King Ghidorah crashed through the Chrysler Building. Crashing through the building and impaled through the spire, there was an explosion unseen since Hiroshima as fire and thunder seemed to shake the world as the blast touched all things for a ten mile radius. In the UN Base, people were knocked to the ground or desperately grabbed a hold of something, anything, as the roof fell and the lights went out. As for Ronnie and Connie, they lay flat on their bellies on the roof of the building they reported on and as for Miki, she and Kyle hid beneath a telekinetic force bubble Miki had erected as the explosion howled around them.
For who knows how long the entire island of Manhattan shook as the flames licked everything before it was flattened by the blast. When the blast was done, a mushroom cloud appeared where the Chrysler Building had been, sucking all in and making dust and ash rain down. For a time after the explosion died down, everything was silent and nobody anywhere could see anything. On their broken building, the two grimy reporters coughed and gagged as they struggled to get back up. Though they choked on the dust that filled their mouths and covered their tattered clothes, Ronnie checked his camera and focused on Connie who began reporting.
"I'm not sure what happened folks. It looked like King Ghidorah was going to use his World Extinction Attack and destroy all life on Earth when Godzilla used his ray to shoot him down. However, I have no idea where even he could have such…limitless power. Wait… there's a wind blowing and it… is beginning to clear away the smoke, I can't see anything yet though."
Meanwhile, back in the underground base, Santos dusted himself off and got up. "Everyone all right?" On seeing that nobody was seriously injured, he turned to the technicians and said, "Alright, I want you to get emergency power right away. Once that's established get the main screen back on line immediately and the lesser screens, if possible."
With that, everyone who wasn't too badly injured immediately went to work, ignoring the showers of sparks that occasionally fell, brushing the fallen plaster from their work stations, and walking around the fallen beams. Lights sputtered back to life and the screen flared as a rain of static; the team fixed that problem soon enough but there wasn't much to see, however. Everyone a mass of frayed nerves and on the very edge they stayed silent as the main screen alternated between silence and sound, picture and black. However, the screen ultimately stayed constant and the images the last four or five camera drones left were broadcast to it.
It was still difficult to see with the haze getting in the way but it was clearing up. Flying through what was left of the dust that would choke them, the drones whizzed along through it and their operators keyed one onto Martin and Segeusa's last recorded position. The flying machine made its way to a strange, little glow and hovered twenty feet above it; its camera zoomed in on the glow and it was seen to be a force bubble. On dissipating it revealed Kyle and Miki who stood up and craned their necks to look up at the machine; they shouted and waved their hands to show the people at HQ it was them.
The lone machine whirled around them three times to let them know they were seen before flying away to join the other camera drones. As it and the others zoomed in to where the Chrysler Building had stood, the strong wind helped immensely with how it blew away what remained of the haze. Closing in on where the tower had once stood, the camera drone showed that nearly every last building on the island had been completely destroyed. Where some had stood there was only rubble, if that much; many others had just been razed to the foundations and in some cases to the bedrock. As per Segeusa's prescience Matsu's building still stood up, of course; the Empire State Building was still there as was the Natural History Museum and a few scattered structures.
For the most part, however, it looked just like Tokyo after the Allied fire bombings or the worst of London after the worst of the Blitz in that it was a scene of total devastation, a scene of smoldering, ruined rubble. The entire megalopolis had been flattened for as far as the eye could see. Yet as the camera drones flew in from all directions, they encountered ground zero of the blast zone and it was very different. Some of the people in the command center strained their eyes and managed to catch two gigantic images in the haze, one sprawled on the ground and the other was a distance away, hunched over with chest heaving. After passing a colossal circle of rubble, the image showed that everything had either been blasted flat or had been melted into sand. As the camera drones got closer, everything seemed to have been blasted clean but as they did so the last of the haze blew away and it was revealed to all.
There, atop a great cairn of rubble, was a broken, eviscerated, beheaded, mutilated, charred, dismembered, corpse. It was the lifeless corpse of King Ghidorah. His entire body—or what was left of it—was burning and it was already burnt black; his right wing was completely gone and his left was blasted to blackened bone. The unburned flesh on both his legs was pulverized into jelly as both feet were nearly broken off. Impaled through his belly was the spire of the Chrysler building and around were his splattered guts. As for his middle neck…well, it just wasn't there. It had been torn off and liquefied into a yellow acidic slime that oozed out from the steaming, pulpy mass that had once been a chest.
The people watching this from Connie Matsu's broadcast saw the view slowly shift from left to right away from King Ghidorah to the other side of the crater. At the other side was the tired and aching Godzilla, hunched over and chest heaving from exhaustion, he was hurting all over. Covered in scars and cuts and bruises, bones broken and not a few organs all but ruptured, he was hurting but was still alive. As he cast a look to his enemy, the wind died down and there was perfect silence. Slowly walking over to the body of his enemy and hurting all over, the last Supersaur's feet limped through the sand and no more noise than that was made. Reaching the body he looked it over and nudged it with his good foot; there was no movement. He nudged it again and again, no movement.
For a time there was no sound or movement on part of anyone, not by the people at UN HQ and not by anyone watching it on TV, as everyone looked to Godzilla who was just staring at King Ghidorah remains. Then, Godzilla threw his head back and roared and the entire planet exploded in jubilation! The soldiers on the front line cried out and jumped and wept. Yes, even the "manliest" of those fighting men for all their boasts of strength fell to their knees and wept; for all their manhood they wept. For Santos and his crew they jumped up from their seats to shout and to hug everyone within arm's reach. As if God Himself had thrown open the Gates of Heaven to let the music of glory thunder inside them, they danced and leapt in exultation. Goodhue, Hayashida, Aso, all of them and even as people were dancing and shouting and throwing papers into the air, Santos slammed his fist to the hand rest and yelled, "YEAH, ALRIGHT!"
Everywhere, in every town, every house, every city, every body leapt to their feet and screamed in pure pandemonium. The heads of state watching this shouted as the glory of final victory filled them with a joy the likes of which they didn't now even existed. Not even the mad Allied celebration at the defeat of the Axis forces could compare as people of every nation, race, and creed from around the world leapt up and hugged and kissed everyone in arms reach. The shouts of joy touched the Heaven as the black pall that King Ghidorah had used to cover the sun was lifted and its lights covered the world once again. Storms stopped blowing, earthquakes stopped shaking, poisons turned to water, and darkness turned to light. The people saw this as they ran outside and, never thinking that there could be such happiness, ran inside to listen to what a certain reporter said.
"We've done it, and… oh thank God…!" Unable to stop crying, Connie Matsu stopped until she regained control, letting twin tear streaks carve paths through the grime on her cheeks. "Everyone… it's… it's finally over; King Ghidorah is beaten once and for all and it was Godzilla who beat him. Ever since the Age of Monsters began… we've spat on him, cursed him, hunted him, and his kind for over forty years… and it was Godzilla who saved us all. We believed in him and he believed in us. Faith rewarded, our planet is safe again thanks to our hero. Now we know that, truly, it is not man who is not ruler of all Creation."
Matsu spared a look to the still roaring King of the Monsters and bit her lip letting his cry of triumph ring loud and clear. "It's over."
And yet it was not over because a block away from Miki and standing on the shifting pile of stone and steel on the streets of the city was Kyle. He still had the backpack slung over his shoulder and holding it in front of him, he pulled out the parts of the mini-bazooka. Putting them together and loading his Toxin, he said, "Yes, it is over."