From her place in the Monarch helicopter as they overflew the city of Hong Kong, Madison Russell amazed herself by flinching every single time they flew over a part of the city that had been heavily damaged during the last 24 hours; it was bad enough Apex had created a mechanical Titan to take on Godzilla to challenge him for his role as the Alpha, which more than explained why the Titan had been attacking different parts of the globe recently since he had sensed the rival which had a piece of Ghidorah controlling it, but what Godzilla and Kong had done…
Madison had been enthralled with the Titans even before her mother's insane actions which nearly saw the whole planet decimated by Ghidorah's rampage, but the presence of the Titans had done more good for Earth with species appearing in the seas, the atmosphere and the planet largely clearing up the pollution which stayed the United Nations in doing something stupid. She only hoped that what happened here with Kong, Godzilla, and the mechanical Titan didn't make someone immeasurably stupid doing something they'd regret.
In many ways, Madison was embarrassed when she flinched since she had seen much, much worse, but she saw even more proof Titans were better left alone.
Godzilla was long since gone. It was being arranged for Kong to head back down to the Hollow Earth; from what she'd heard, after she'd spoken to Illene Andrews, Madison had learnt Kong's race had once inhabited the Hollow Earth and there was even a 'palace' that Godzilla had destroyed to grab the giant apes' attention. There was no doubt in her mind Andrews and the last of the Iwi from Skull Island would be setting up an outpost in the Hollow Earth to continue the job of monitoring Kong as they had on Skull Island.
Skull Island….
Madison had studied the early expedition to Skull Island, back in the 70s. The expedition had seen many of the military-scientific team being slaughtered by the MUTOs, but the expedition had confirmed the presence of many MUTOs and the presence of Kong, and the Hollow Earth, from what she had heard recently, Skull Island was now dead after the weather had turned and destroyed it.
"Horrible, isn't it?" Madison turned to her father. Mark Russell looked like he hadn't slept for days, and a part of her took some sadistic pleasure in knowing she was right. Her father had never had a good view of the Titans, but on this occasion, she was not going to say a word since the evidence was right below them. Right now Monarch was going through Apex like a hurricane to discover their secrets.
"Yeah, it is," Madison agreed.
Mark sighed. "You were right, there was a pattern to Godzilla's attacks."
"I know I was."
"Madison-."
"Dad," she interrupted. "It's been 5 years since Ghidorah attacked, and Godzilla has seemed largely prepared to leave us alone. Why would he break that pattern now? If he wanted to destroy us, surely he would have just let Ghidorah lead the others into destroying the world."
Mark's face was a picture, he didn't like being questioned like this, but right now she didn't care. She was tired. She had come all the way to Hong Kong and discovered Apex were involved in an insane scheme to remove Godzilla and the other Titans without a clue what they were doing. But she was proud she, Bernie and Josh had damaged the controls of the metal thing that effortlessly tore a number of Skullcrawlers apart, and would have likely killed Kong.
There was little doubt both titans would have been able to win even with their intervention; Godzilla was not the type to give up, and from what she had learnt of him even if she had only just seen him fight, Kong didn't know when to quit.
"Don't push me like that, Madison," her dad ground out while Josh sat opposite them and kept out of this one. "You really pissed me off with worry when you ran off, then I found you in the middle of this!" He waved an angry hand at the devastation of Hong Kong.
Madison turned her head and looked down at the ruined city. She spotted the massive form of Kong as he lumbered towards the hole Godzilla had drilled down to the Hollow Earth. "If you had bothered to listen to me, half of this would never have happened. Did you never think of that?"
"Madison, I-I don't think you should say-," Josh stuttered, looking between father and daughter worriedly.
"Stay out of this, Josh!" Mark snapped with a wave of his hand.
"Yeah, stay out of it, Josh," Madison sent her friend a smile to take the bite out of the words before she turned to glare at her father, but she softened it a little there. "Dad, I know Monarch's supposed to take an 'if something is happening, we should assume the worst' attitude, but surely it would be better to investigate before you're so quick to accuse."
"Don't question me about Monarch policies, Madison," Mark tried to keep up his angry facade, but fatigue stopped him from being too angry. He was just relieved to find his daughter was here, safe.
"I'm not. I agree with those policies, Dad, but it might be a good idea to stop thinking the obvious is the answer. Not every problem has an immediate answer. Sometimes you have to dig down and properly investigate," Madison turned away and focused on the devastation of Hong Kong; it wasn't as bad as San Francisco had been following Godzilla's battle with the MUTOs or the destruction of Boston, but it was still bad.
Madison had already seen footage that had gone viral online. Clips of Kong and Godzilla going at it; Kong throwing a massive battle axe (?) at a building, and distracting Godzilla long enough to jump on him. Godzilla crawled after Kong and scratched at the ape-like titan with such savagery before roaring into Kong's face. There were quite a few clips out there already, but Madison would wait until she saw the full one before she formed an opinion. She knew how powerful some of the already discovered Titans could be, but she had never seen Godzilla this enraged since Ghidorah. It was really the fight of the century since there was something different about Godzilla taking on an ape rather than a three-headed dragon.