The One Who Lost His Way

AN: There's a lot of POV switching in this one, but I thought it necessary to convey the scenes in the right way. There's a lot of important interactions in this particular one that set up for the next stage of the story.

Speaking of which, I would consider this chapter to be the end of part one of the KotM arc. Obviously, we're way off the rails when compared to the movie's events, but I would say KotM is done when an actual King of the Monsters is chosen. The second and final part of the KotM arc will end with that King being chosen. And we all know who the two contestants are.

Key:

"Titan speak"

"Human speak"

Character's inner thoughts

"Telepathic communication"

Disclaimer: I do not own Godzilla: King of the Monsters or any characters.

USS Argo, off the coast of Boston:

They'd just gotten onto the bridge of Monarch's airship when Foster's declaration came over the radio. "Argo...they're gone..."

A collective sense of disappointment and frustration came over the entire bridge crew upon hearing that. Sam sat down in a chair with a sigh as Rick cursed under his breath. "Copy that, Colonel..." As soon as the channel was closed, he dragged a hand down his face in annoyance. "What is going to take to catch these guys, huh?" he asked no one in particular. "I mean they're always one step ahead of us. How?"

From the sound of it, he was as much asking himself that question as he was everyone else. All of their colleagues looked between each other in hopes one of the others had an idea. Both Mark and Maddie stood in the doorway, his hands upon her shoulder, though no one seemed to have noticed their presence. "They have a backdoor into your systems."

At Maddie's declaration, heads simultaneously turned to her in shock and surprise. Whether their reactions were from her actually being there or because of what she said, she couldn't tell. It was probably a bit of both. "How...?" Sam started to ask but trailed off.

"Emma. It has to be," Dr. Graham suggested.

"Okay...but I'm with Sam on this one," Dr. Stanton began. "How the hell did we not think of that?"

Surprisingly, it was her dad that answered. "Because all of us were hoping that deep down Emma was still one of us. I think by now it's become crystal clear that she's not." As hard as it was to hear her dad say that about her mom, she knew it was the truth. Emma Russell had gone too far to come back now.

"How long to reset our systems?" Dr. Serizawa asked. She hadn't even noticed him until now. He'd been quiet until now, and he was sitting in the opposite corner of the room.

"Long enough," was Dr. Stanton's reply. "And we'd have to set down. Otherwise..." He whistled, the sound decreasing in pitch to match his hand in a crude but effective imitation of a plane crash. "We do that, do a hard reset of all systems, and we should be good to go."

"How long?" Mark asked again.

"A day or two," Sam answered. "More depending on if they're just in the Argo or in our entire network." He looked to Maddie, clearly hoping she knew.

"It sounded like they were in the entire system," she said hesitantly. "But I'm not sure. They didn't really tell me much." That reminded her of something. She took off her backpack and rummaged around in it to the curious gazes of everyone in here. Once she found her notebook, she gave it to her dad, who looked at it and then at her in confusion. "I doubt there's anything in there that you don't already know, but I wrote down what I could hear of their plans. You can use for evidence in trial if nothing else."

Her dad smiled, his gaze full of pride. "That's good thinking, kid," Dr. Stanton nodded. "Good job."

"You wouldn't happen to know how Emma made the ORCA signal, would you?" Dr. Chen wondered. Her expression was hopeful, though it seemed like she wasn't expecting an answer.

When Maddie shook her head, there was another collective sigh of disappointment. "She wouldn't tell me much about it when she was building it. Sorry." She actually felt bad for not being able to help.

"That's okay," her dad assured her. "You've given us enough to go on." Then, to Stanton, he said, "Find us somewhere to land, and someone needs to tell Stenz about this."

Dr. Serizawa stood up just then and nodded. "I'll talk to the admiral. You two should go catch up."

Her dad put his hand on her shoulder and nodded at the elderly scientist. "Thank you. Come on, Maddie." He turned away and guided her out of the room. Once they were in the hall, he asked, "You hungry?"

"Yeah," she nodded, so he steered her into a small cafeteria.

Lunch was an...awkward affair. After five years apart, it was hard to figure out what to say. There was no pretending like things were back to normal. The only reason she was here was because her mom went too far off the deep end, and both of them knew it. What could she say to that? What could either of them say?

When she'd gotten her food and sat down at one of the tables, he sat on the bench next to her, though he hadn't gotten anything to eat for himself. While she slowly picked at her food, he'd sat with his hands clasped upon the table, and not once had his gaze left said table. It seemed he was just as lost as she was.

Eventually, she finished eating and pushed her tray away from her. Then, they just...sat there, neither of them knowing what to say or do. They'd probably been sitting there for a total of thirty to forty minutes, and it was right when she started to get up to throw her tray away when he spoke.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you and your mom," he whispered, still not able to meet her gaze. She sat down slowly and turned to face him. "Losing Andrew...I didn't know how to handle the grief. But that was no reason to give up on the family I still had." He rubbed his face with his hands and took a deep breath. "If I'd been a better husband—a better father—maybe none of this would be happening."

"Dad..." She honestly didn't know what to say to that. For the longest time, her mom had been painting her dad as the bad guy, the one who abandoned them. And for the longest time, Maddie had blamed him for how their family fell apart. She still kind of did, but she couldn't tell if those were her genuine feelings or the result of her mother's attempted indoctrination. "I'm not going to say it wasn't your fault..." she began hesitantly, then winced at how harsh that sounded. "That...sounded worse than I meant. You made a mistake," she started over. "And it hurt both me and mom. But since you realize that now, the best thing you can do is promise it won't happen again."

He nodded and pulled her close, giving her a one-armed hug. "I promise," he whispered. Then, he took another deep breath. "I promise..."

Meanwhile, on an osprey heading south above the Atlantic:

"You're certain?" An affirmative came through the cockpit radio, and the copilot glanced at him. "Very well...keep me updated." The radio shut off, and Jonah passed the headset back to the copilot, who took it silently.

Once he left the cockpit, he shut the door, and his gaze instantly fell upon Dr. Russell. The ORCA was in her lap, and her chin rested upon her clasped hands. Her expression was one of deep thought and worry.

"Any news, sir?" one of his men asked. The rest of them turned to him and awaited his response.

"Quite a lot, and none of it good. It appears Monarch is now wise to our presence in their systems." There was some muttering from his tech team. "The men investigating the disturbance at Fenway Park were atomized by Monster Zero." Some more muttering from the rest of them. "And little Madison Russell is now aboard the Argo, telling Monarch all of our dirty secrets." All eyes turned to the single scientist in the bay, who seemed to understand just how bad that was. "But I'm sure you'll be glad to know, Dr. Russell, that she's safe with your ex-husband. Probably safer than she was here, at least. A terrorist cell is no place for a little girl."

Dr. Russell finally looked up at him at that. "What are you trying to say, Jonah?"

"What I'm saying is that your decision to involve your daughter in this has put us in a rather unfortunate position. Our test run in New York may have been successful, but whatever progress we've made is now rendered moot with our access to Monarch's internal systems cut off. We no longer have the advantage here." He paused and looked around at everyone within the plane, taking in their expressions one at a time. A lot of them were worried that this was the end, that their plan had failed. "So I must ask you, Dr. Russell...does this turn of events change things? Are you still with us?"

Unbeknownst to her, the answer she gave him right now would decide whether she lived or died as soon as they landed. Her knowledge of the titans may not be perfect, but she knew a hell of a lot more than any of the rest of them did. And the ORCA was a much more complicated device than he first thought. Every time he thought he understood the thing, she did something with it that he didn't know it could do. It would be a shame to dispose of her if she still wanted to work with them, but he couldn't afford to keep someone with questionable loyalties around.

At his question, she looked back down at the ORCA. After a few seconds went by, he noticed one of his men getting ready to speak, and he held up a hand to silence him. This was an answer Dr. Russell needed to give on her own time, without being rushed or forced. Only then could he be sure if she was being truthful or not.

Almost twenty minutes passed before she answered, and he'd long since sat down to wait patiently. His gaze had never left her, so when she looked up with her answer, he was ready to hear it. "I knew what I was getting into when I went to you, Jonah. Maddie's young. She doesn't understand the stakes. Her leaving...hurts. But if she's with Mark, I know she's safe."

"Even despite the behavior that drove you to divorce him?" he asked curiously.

"He...seems to have gotten better," she hesitantly admitted. "Mark was a lot of things back then, but he never tried to hurt us. Still, purposefully or not, his drinking tore us apart. From what I've seen of him these past few weeks, he's...better." From the sound of it, it almost hurt her to admit it.

After a few minutes of quiet deliberation, he decided that maybe keeping her around was worth the risk. She seemed sincere in saying she still wanted to continue this path, though. He hummed. "I'm glad to hear it. But you won't blame me, I hope, for wanting to keep a closer eye on you for the near future."

She nodded as if fully expecting that. "No, I don't. And I'll cooperate, I swear. I know you're taking a big risk here."

So she wasn't fully ignorant of the current situation. That was good to know. "I appreciate the understanding." The next part was for her sake as much as the rest of his men. "We'll be landing in Brazil in a few hours. The plan for the foreseeable future is to lay low. With Monarch getting wise to our backdoor into their systems, we can no longer afford to be hasty. We'll need time to come up with a new plan and let Monarch expend resources trying to find us."

Specifically, they needed a plan to overcome the three-headed nuisance that was Monster Zero. Anything was possible with a good plan and enough resources, no matter how impossible it seemed. He just needed time to make that plan.

Back in Boston:

"I'm getting real tired of flying in circles here, Ichi," Ni grumbled.

"I am the one flying, Ni. Not you." Still, his brother had a point. Ichi was beginning to grow impatient, too. Monarch's large flying ship had been hovering off the coast of the city for hours now, and there was no sign of that changing anytime soon. When they agreed to follow Mark until they had another chance to talk, Ichi hadn't expected there to be such a long delay.

"Doesn't mean I can't be tired of going in circles!" he snapped. "At this rate, I'm going to end up as dizzy as San!"

Ichi glanced at their younger brother and grimaced. Poor San was dangling limp, his tongue lolling out and his eyes screwed shut. Ichi had been flying in a cyclonic pattern, so San's loop had been shorter, and thus, the dizzying affect had been more severe. "Uh...yes, I suppose I was not paying much attention to that." The monotonous repetition of the task had sort of allowed him to zone out. Their flight path had been more muscle memory than anything, and from the position of the sun, he'd actually lost track of time. "Has it really been three hours?"

"I don't know. San, do you think it's been three hours?" At Ni's question, the youngest whimpered quietly, and Ni shot a pointed look at Ichi.

"Can we land please, Ichi? I think I might get sick." The overhanging threat and the miserable tone it was said in had Ichi agreeing immediately. Hopefully the humans would be understanding to have them landing near their city again.

Back aboard the Argo:

He'd been showing Maddie his wildlife pictures and telling her stories about his time in Colorado for the past couple of hours. She seemed interested, which he took to be a good sign. She'd always been an animal lover, which had apparently transitioned to the titans, too. Even after a horrible crisis aboard a secret organization's airship, there was a bit of normality to just sitting down and talking to his daughter.

Of course, all good things have to end at some point.

The ship shuddered, and suddenly there was a noticeable amount of g-force pushing them into their chairs as the Argo accelerated. He had to grab the laptop to prevent it from sliding off the table. "What's going on?" Maddie asked.

He glanced at her before looking out the open door into the hallway. No one was running, and the alarm wasn't blaring, so he assumed it wasn't another crisis for them to worry about. "Don't know. I guess I should go find out, though." As much as he didn't want to, he recognized that the people on this ship were coming to him for a lot of things now, as if he had the answers to all of their questions. He didn't, of course, but he'd been the one with the plans and ideas thus far.

"Can I come with?" He glanced at her again before nodding. Both of them stood, their chairs scraping across the floor from the movement, and she followed him out of the cafeteria towards the bridge.

"What's going on?" he asked as they entered the bridge.

To his surprise, it was Serizawa who answered. The old head of Monarch was back on his feet and getting stuff done again. "Admiral Stenz just got back to us. He wants us to land at JFK."

"JFK?" Mark repeated. "That's not a military base."

"It is now," Foster responded, turning away from the front window to address them. "The military has taken over the airstrip for now. We'll be able to land and perform repairs there."

There was a beep from one of the consoles, and Stanton was on it like he normally was. "Ghidorah's on the move, too, but he's not following us."

A lot of people exchanged wary looks at that, but Mark just asked the question on everyone's minds. "Then where's he going?"

Rick typed a few things in and made a 'huh' sound. "The Boston Outer Islands?"

Mark couldn't think of an immediate reason why Ghidorah would be going there, but it was a better place to hold a conversation than an airport in the middle of a partially destroyed city. "Get an osprey ready," he ordered Foster. "Ghidorah wanted a talk, and I think an isolated island is a better place than the middle of New York City."

Foster just raised an eyebrow in incredulity but didn't argue. She went on the intercom and ordered a bird be readied. "It'll be ready when you are."

"Dad?" He looked down at Maddie's pleading expression and sighed. He'd already promised to bring her along, though he hadn't expected it to be this soon.

He nodded. "Come on." She did a fist pump in victory and followed him out. Sam wished them good luck as they left.

Griffin was already in the pilot's seat by the time the got to the hangar bay, and once they were aboard and sitting down, the door shut, and then they were airborne. It wasn't a long trip, so they didn't have to pack anything extra. And even if they stayed longer than they expected, they were right outside of Boston still.

They landed on the northwest beach, which was the really the only place they could touch down. The door opened, letting in the late afternoon sun. The two stepped out on the beach after Griffin assured them that she'd be there when they were ready to leave.

It wasn't a very good beach. Instead of sand, the whole thing consisted of rocks and gravel. The most interesting part of the place was the titan watching them with two sets of eyes as they got off the plane. Ghidorah was standing a little ways off shore of the other side of the island, but he was tall enough, and the island small enough, for him to be able to watch them approach.

Maddie waved at them, so he thought it best to do the same, if only to be friendly. They had to walk through up a small hill and through some trees to get to the other side of the island, and the sight that greeted them wasn't one he had expected to see. Ghidorah's third head, the left one, was lying sideways upon the even rockier east beach, it's left cheek face down. Its tongue lolled out, and its jaws were open a smidge as it panted.

He stopped upon seeing the sight, trying to figure out what was going on, but Maddie had no such reservations. "Maddie!" He tried to stop her as she ran up to the massive head without hesitation, and when he missed, he hurried after her.

"What happened to you?" she asked, and he really began regretting bringing her along when she touched the snout like the massive titan was a household pet or something.

The other two heads were staring at Maddie intently, though neither of them said anything. He inched forward and grabbed his daughter. "Maybe don't touch the dragon without permission?" he sternly suggested.

Before Maddie could retort, the middle head spoke. "If we had not decided before, we would be positive now. Maddie is our human."

Said human was staring at the middle head and was only able to utter a single syllable. "Uh..."

For his part, Mark said the first thing that came to mind. "What the hell does that mean?"

The left head shifted, though it appeared to be extra careful not to hit Maddie. "It was Mothra's idea," it muttered, sounding downright miserable.

"She suggested we choose a human to speak for us," the middle explained. "For whenever we cannot speak for ourselves, of course."

"And to make us seem more approachable," left continued.

Mark blinked. That...made sense. One thing didn't make sense, though. "If you want someone to speak for you, anyone at Monarch could. I could. Maddie's just a child."

"Hey!" she shouted indignantly.

"Perhaps," middle relented. "But this child was unafraid of us when we first met. You were." That almost sounded accusatory. He didn't deny it, though. He had been scared.

"And she petted my snout," left said innocently. "I like the pets." Right huffed and looked away as if annoyed by left's childish declaration.

"But—" Mark tried, only to be interrupted by the most unlikely of sources.

"Dad...this would be like the coolest thing ever." She glanced up at the dragon and smiled. "I've always wanted a dragon."

Mark just sat down heavily and put his head in his hands. "Jesus..." That made him remember something. "I should have just let you get the snake." When she was younger, Maddie had wanted a pet snake, but he wouldn't let her. And look what that had led to. This was a hell of a step up from a ball python, but he didn't exactly have much choice here, did he? He glanced up for a moment and saw all four of them watching him. He shrugged, completely at a loss. "Alright..." he relented. Then, he pointed straight at the middle head and gave it his best stern look. "But she stays with me."

The three heads all glanced between each other and made a few chittering noises between them. Eventually, middle looked back at him. "That is acceptable." Mark quietly sighed in relief, wondering what would happen if the dragon had found it unacceptable.

AN: Mark has apologized to his daughter and their relationship is on the road to mending, Emma has chosen a side, and Maddie now has a dragon. The world is not ready for their shenanigans, I tell you.

Also, I absolutely love writing Kevin. He's just so innocent compared to Ichi and Ni, and that is a trend I plan on continuing. And I swear that name is going to come up at some point. One day, he will be called Kevin!

Anyway, reviews are appreciated, as always.

Until Next Time

AdmiralCole22