Raindrops beat out an unsteady rhythm on his scaly hide as he ran, feeling ground and pavement crack and groan beneath his massive feet. Huge chunks of asphalt were being ripped out as his obsidian claws tore into the street with every mighty leap, leaving behind a trail of destruction and smashed cars. The muscles of his legs quivered and burned from the strain of this mad dash, but he pushed on, driven by a deep burning hatred and all-encompassing rage. At what, he could not tell, his thoughts too clouded with the red haze of fury to truly worry about such unimportant details.

His eyes, narrowed angrily, were staring straight ahead and down at a small moving box speeding through the night, shining bright yellow as it occasionally passed under a circle of light cast by a stray streetlamp; the source of all his anger and grief. Everything else around him blended together into a shapeless, dark mass that sped by at a staggering speed, insignificant and unnoticed. He was dimly aware of his tail swinging behind him and felt it smash into things, but ignored it too. The box was so close now, practically in his reach. He stretched out his sinewy body as far as he could and brought his head down, looking to clamp his jaws around it.

He missed by inches. And then the yellow insect took a sharp right turn and he swung his head to follow it, throwing himself off balance with the sudden movement in the process. He lost his footing, slipped and fell to his knees, sending debris flying and kicking up a massive cloud of dust, letting out an enraged roar at his own folly and scrambled to get up and continue the chase.

Though his mistake had given his prey the opening it needed to create some distance between itself and its pursuer, it didn't take him long to catch up. The storm had been gradually growing in force all throughout their little game of cat and mouse, making his wet scales shimmer in the light of an occasional lightning bolt that zigzagged across the sky.

He breathed heavily, each wheezing exhale creating a fountain of water exploding out of his nostrils. Each heavy footfall against the solid ground jarred the muscles and bones of his powerful legs, causing them to burn and ache and throb in protest, and exhaustion battled the adrenaline-fueled determination at each step. Undeterred, he pressed on, trying not to think of how much longer he could keep going like this.

Another lunge, another miss as the box veered out of the way of his snapping maw, another furious roar. While his prey might not have been faster than him, its smaller size allowed it to dodge each of his attacks with insulting ease; a fact that angered him even further.

In his rage at the insect, he failed to see when ground had given way to something more rickety, swinging back and forth unsteadily underneath his feet, clearly not made to support someone of his size and bulk. He only realized something wasn't right when he rammed shoulders first into something solid and rough that stopped him dead in his tracks. The impact had knocked the air straight out of him in a high-pitched almost-bark and dazed him momentarily. His eyes refocused on his prey, speeding away from him; it must have dodged the obstruction that he, in his blind fury, had ran into.

He roared loudly and pushed forward, trying to shove himself through the tight space. He would not let the cursed yellow box, he would not. The ground he stood on groaned in protest at his struggles, cracking beneath his clawing feet as he struggled against his inanimate opponent for freedom.

Something fell on top of him, crashing against the razor sharp spikes on his back and further pinning him in place. He tried to take a step forward, but something caught onto his foot before he could lift and immobilized it. He swung his forearms, trying to claw his way through instead, but all he succeeded in doing was leaving a few deep gashes in the brick. His tail thrashed behind him, swaying from side to side and slamming into his assailants in an effort to drive them off, to no avail, he was stuck and his prey had escaped. Trapped and helpless, he roared again, all of his anguish and anger and grief rolled into one ear-splitting scream.

Something whizzed past his head. He recoiled slightly in surprise, trying to swing his head in the direction it went to spot what had made that sound. And then three other objects slammed into his side and exploded, tearing out chunks of flesh, muscle and tissue. Roars of anger turned to screeches of pain in an instant.

His whole body shuddered, the pain nearly enough to make his knees buckle. Waterfalls of blood cascaded down his side and leg to crash onto the ground below. He could feel the rain and wind whip against exposed bone and flesh. He panted heavily, screeching and crying out in pain as another round of explosions tore his head apart, this time on his other side.

He felt his knees grow weak as his own blood stained his grey scales and spilled down his legs and sides. Fragments of ribs, broken apart by the force of the blasts, stuck out from his sides, some stabbing further into his body and piercing his lungs, which filled up with warm blood in an instant, making breathing impossible. He coughed and gargled, tasting copper and warmth in the back of his mouth; one of the explosions had caught him on the throat and blasted it wide open.

He swayed, unsteady, growing dizzy from the blood loss and pain. He opened his mouth once again to release one final agonized cry, but all that came out of his slack jaw was more blood as another series of explosions dug into the exposed meat of his ribcage and blew apart his insides. Darkness consumed his vision, each nerve in his body seeming to scream out in pain all at once, and he tipped over and fell to the ground with a meaty thud, splashing blood everywhere and sending chunks of meat flying.

For a moment his sides still rose and fell, more out of habit than actual necessity for oxygen. He could feel his intestines come spilling out in a mess from the holes created by the blasts, his legs giving their final twitches. And with a final shuddering exhale, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his heart stilled.

Zilla shot up with a strangled gasp, clutching his chest and feeling it heave under his palm. He could still feel the heat of the explosions tearing his body apart, though as he reached to check his side his hand came away without any blood on it. He shut his eyes tightly and slowly rubbed his chest in small circles, trying to calm his racing heart.

Just a nightmare, he reasoned to himself, slowly lying back down and taking in deep, steady breaths. Gradually, the panic attack passed and he could breathe normally again.

This wasn't the first time he'd had this dream, as it seemed to plague him every time he closed his eyes to rest. But no matter how many times he had gone through his own death, he never got used to experiencing it. Nor the pain of wounds that weren't really there.

Pain...

He reached down his left side and carefully traced his fingers down its length. His usually smooth scales were swollen in a jagged line that led all the way down from just under his ribcage to his left knee. So he hadn't dreamt that part up. He had really jumped in front of Godzilla to get zapped by a string of gravity beams. What a fitting end to a lowly creature like him. Except he'd survived. It seemed not even nature itself wanted Zilla to go down in a blaze of glory.

With a small chuffing exhale he reached up to gently rub at his temples, feeling a migraine slowly developing behind his eyes. He paused when his fingers brushed against the rough skin of his skull and his eyes snapped open.

He had never been able to touch his head like this before. And come to think of it, why was he lying on his back?

Wait...

Zilla brought his hands in front of his face, and his eyes widened in shock. His arms were longer. He sat up again, just as abruptly as he had before, staring at his limbs as if they weren't his own.

When the hell did that happen, he questioned, slowly turning his hands this way and that, and wiggling his fingers; they looked suspiciously similar to... human hands, with four fingers and a thumb, albeit the claws and scales they were sporting were noticeably inhuman. He gulped quietly, his amber eyes bulging out even more at that realization; something was definitely off. His eyes travelled from the tips of his fingers to his legs, which appeared to be generally fine without any apparent differences to them, save for the massive scar he had noticed already. He wiggled his toes just to make sure they were still working, though.

Between his legs rested his tail. At first glance, there was nothing alarming about it, though upon closer inspection Zilla realized that his tail didn't normally bend like this. And why was he sitting, he'd never sat like this before, only ever crouched on his haunches to get a closer look at something on the ground.

Panic began to claw at the edges of his mind once again and his breath quickened dangerously. He jerked his head around, suddenly distrustful of his surroundings. No light had blinded him when he had first opened his eyes, the entire area was dark though he could see in it just fine thanks to his heightened eyesight.

There was a window to his right, through it he could see a gray, cloudy sky and mountain peaks in the distance. A window? He looked to his left, nearly snapping his own neck with how fast he turned: rows of boxes with gleaming handles adorned the neutrally colored wall, and beneath them stood even more boxes.

He slowly reached for his chest again, feeling another case of hyperventilation coming. None of this was natural, none of this looked like the cave he had called his home, or a decimated city he had fought in, or even the many forests he had wondered through. By all accounts, this looked like... like a place a... a human would live in.

And then the door he hadn't noticed before opened, and he leapt right off the flat surface he'd been lying on and tumbled to the floor with a subdued shriek of surprise. Thankfully he landed on his uninjured leg. He grabbed the edge of the nearest box and dragged himself to his feet, hissing a little at being forced to put some of his weight on his bad leg; it still hurt, though not quite as badly as it had before.

"...You okay there?"

The iguana turned around at the sound of someone's voice, his tail whipping behind him and slamming into something with a loud bang that made him jump a little. In the doorway stood a familiar figure, illuminated by the slope of artificial light from behind, though at the same time it wasn't familiar at all.

Rodan, Zilla's mind supplied helpfully, the pteranodon kaiju. They had met before on several occasions, the last battle being the most recent one. Well, "met" might have been too strong of a word; but Zilla had seen him flying about, that surely counted for something. Though he didn't look like the Rodan Zilla remembered. His arms were longer and more... arm-like with similarly structured hands to his own, his wings hung off them awkwardly like a sheet of taut skin, stretching from his wrists to his hips on either side of his body. Though now they were folded strangely as their owner had his arms crossed over his chest.

"Done gawking yet?" Rodan asked, bemused and Zilla flushed a little under his scales.

He gave a small nod in response. At least Rodan's beak remained the same. Absentmindedly Zilla reached up for his own snout, feeling it out gingerly and finding, with much relief, that it had remained as it had been before.

"About time you woke up, you've been out for, like, a week," the flying kaiju spoke up again, looking Zilla over thoroughly, his eyes lingering on the scar; though with how big it was, it would be odd for someone not to notice it right away.

"Week?" Zilla blurted out, shocked, in a meek voice, before he could stop himself.

He cursed internally, seeing Rodan's eyes widen a fraction. He was expecting the other kaiju to make some sort of comment about his voice, but no such thing happened.

"Yeah, you got hit pretty bad," Rodan awkwardly cleared his throat and the two fell into an uncomfortable silence, with the pteranodon suddenly finding great interest in the texture of his arm and Zilla glancing around uncertainly all the while wrenching his hands nervously.

He still had no real clue as to what was going on and it seemed Rodan wasn't exactly keen on helping to unravel any of these mysteries. Though in order for him to do so, Zilla would first need to ask, and he wasn't very good at asking. Or talking.

"Oh for... Just bring him out here, Radon," someone barked from behind Rodan's back, who squawked in indignation just as Zilla backed away hastily and bumped his hips against one of the boxes behind him, its sharp edge jamming unpleasantly into his backside.

"It's RODAN, not RADON," he hissed over his shoulder, motioning for Zilla to follow him.

The iguana hesitated at first, his tail beating behind him nervously. The voice that had called to Rodan was so similar to that of Godzilla's that it made his skin crawl in anxiety. Another meeting with the Kaiju King was very low on the list of things he'd like to do today, but he supposed there was no way to avoid it. Risking the wrath of Godzilla was a spectacularly stupid idea.

Seeing the iguana frozen in place, Rodan heaved a heavy sigh, rolled his eyes and crossed the room to grab Zilla firmly by the wrist. It earned him a gasp of surprise from the iguana, who had been so lost in thought he had failed to see the pteranodon approach him, and a pair of large, wide amber eyes staring into his own. Rodan noted to himself how Zilla seemed to shrink a little from physical contact.

They looked at each other for a good few seconds, Zilla's frozen surprise and Rodan's silent bewilderment. Finally, the flying kaiju tugged on the iguana's wrist.

"Come on, they'll explain," he said, and Zilla could've almost sworn that Rodan's voice was softer. He immediately pushed that thought away, and followed, this time without any hesitance.

Each step he took was measured and careful. His center of gravity had been altered completely, as he was forced to walk fully upright and not leaned over like he had before all of this. Despite that, he didn't want to lean on Rodan; he was sure the other kaiju would not appreciate that.

They made it to the door without any incidents, which was a small success in and of itself. Rodan shot him a quick glance and, apparently deciding he'd be fine the rest of the way alone, stepped through the entrance and disappeared from the iguana's view.

Taking a small breath to prepare himself, Zilla took a shaky step and passed through the door himself. He was forced to narrow his eyes as the light shone into them oppressively and needed a moment to get used to it after the darkness of the area he'd woken up in, blinking owlishly. As soon as his vision adjusted and he could see where he was again, he froze.

Zilla felt his heart begin to pound and his breath took on a wheezing quality.

Before him, around what human referred to as a table, sat nine Godzillas. Nine. That was eight too many. At best. And each of them was staring right at him with various levels of snarl visible on their faces. It didn't help that he had never seen seven of them before. In his defense, beings stronger than him would likely quake at the sight of eight Godzillas, not that he was looking for any excuses.

A part of him, a very major one, wanted nothing more but to bolt right back to the relative safety of the previous room, but he kept his ground, and returned their stern looks with one of his own, albeit his was a lot more wary and frightened instead of intimidating.

"So, little one," one of them rumbled, this one tall, taller than even his brethren, covered in thick armor plating so unlike the Godzilla Zilla had seen before with a thick neck and a plethora of scars covering his scaly body. His voice was deep and rumbling, like an earthquake. "You must have questions."