The One Who Lost His Way

AN: I'm starting to realize that I can't do longer chapters anymore. Being an adult sucks.

Anyway, this chapter doesn't have much dialogue, but I think it has some good setup. I particularly like the first part, so I hope you guys like it, too.

Key:

"Titan speak"

"Human speak"

Character's inner thoughts

"Telepathic communication"

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

Outskirts of Ottawa, Canada:

At first, it was kind of funny that everyone he passed on the road honked at him. Everybody who lived in the outskirts was heading to the city, for some reason he couldn't fathom. The so-called 'Titan shelters' they'd built after the Titan attacks five years ago couldn't hold everyone in the city. In actuality, they barely had the space for about five percent of the population, if that.

So all the people heading to the city, looking for 'safety', were wasting their time. And if Godzilla woke up and decided to throw a tantrum after his loss to that golden hydra, all those people would end up dead with nowhere to go. The subways in Ottawa weren't exactly extensive, not compared to somewhere like New York City, and they were poor substitutes for actual bunkers.

Of course, based on his research, the bunkers had one fatal flaw. They were too close to the surface. They were lead lined to prevent radiation exposure, sound proofed to prevent anything up top from hearing the people inside, and stocked with food and essentials for a family of four to live comfortably for the rest of theirs, their children's, and their grandchildren's lives. But if a titan as heavy as Godzilla stepped in just the right spot, the whole structure would cave in and instantly bury anyone inside.

So after about ten minutes of constant horn honking, the situation went from funny to annoying to downright heartbreaking. People just didn't know the truth. The governments had advertised safe shelter for anyone who needed it, but they knew that they didn't have the space to hold all these people. Whether they were lying to put people at ease or because they wanted to funnel all these witless people into one place to make it easier for the titans to kill them all, he couldn't say.

He really hoped it was the former, though.

The government was a lot of things, but he doubted they actually wanted to kill a sizable chunk of their own population.

Still, lying to put people at ease was just as wrong because look at what was happening. These people didn't know any better because the government wasn't telling them the truth. It was situations like these that made him start his podcast in hopes to get the truth out. But his exposure was...less than he'd hoped. That was the main reason he jumped in front of that news camera. Normally, he'd try to stay out of the spotlight, but he needed people to get his messages, damnit!

They needed to be prepared! They needed to know the truth! And it seemed like he was the only one who was worried enough to actually do anything about it! Monarch wasn't telling the people anything because it was all 'classified'. And even if they actually wanted to declassify stuff, the military certainly wasn't going to let them.

He was the only one leaving the city, with everyone else trying to enter it. And he was the only one making the smart decision. There was no stopping a titan, no hunkering down in cover before one. The only thing you could do was get out of their way, but everyone else was either deluding themselves into thinking the city was safer or just too trusting of the government.

Of course, as if in direct opposition to that, he wasn't leaving the city to get out of the titans' way. He was trying to get as close to Godzilla as possible. Hopefully without getting killed or arrested. Maybe if he got some actual, credible scientific measurements from the big guy himself, his podcast would become, well...more credible.

His van was currently packed with everything he needed to study titans while on the road. Binoculars, devices that used lasers to measure both distance and temperature, cameras, sketchpads, notebooks, textbooks on biology, math, and physics to help with calculations, and various other gadgets to measure anything from water acidity to air composition. And, of course, the most important thing was currently sitting on the dashboard, occasionally ticking ominously.

Though his eyes stayed on the road, so he didn't hit one of the impatient morons trying to skip ahead in the longest line of cars he'd ever seen, they occasionally drifted over to his Geiger counter to make sure he wasn't driving straight into a hot zone. The last thing he needed was to get radiation sickness or catch cancer. That handy little device would let him know how close to Godzilla was too close.

Out of the passenger side window, he could see the great dorsal spines rising into the sky like strangely shaped stone pillars. The main road wouldn't take him near the titan, so he needed to find a side road or something that wasn't completely devastated by the earlier fight.

The one thing that concerned him more than anything else was the military helicopters circling Godzilla like vultures over a fresh carcass. After a few more minutes of driving, he found a road that seemed to go off in the general direction he needed. He was about two kilometers out when he was forced to stop. A massive gouge was cut into the road, stretching in either direction for quite a ways. Based on the shape, he'd say one of the golden hydra's heads had hit the ground here, creating this massive ditch. There was no way he could drive his van around it.

He huffed, staring at the obstacle in annoyance before shutting his van off and stepping out. Grabbing his binoculars, he brought them to his face to take in the distant form of Godzilla and the torn up earth between him and the titan. Traversing that gauntlet would be difficult, but he'd come too far to back out now. As long as he made sure to bring his Geiger counter and kept out of the military's sights, he'd be fine. They couldn't land, at least. There wasn't enough clear space for that, though he supposed they would have rappel gear.

As for the titan himself, birds circled his dorsal spines, occasionally landing to rest for a moment before taking flight again. His neck seemed blackened and burnt from the sustained electrical barrage the hydra had subjected him to. His entire body rose and fell in a steady pattern to indicate he was still breathing.

Lowering the binoculars, he stared at the gauntlet before him with determination. "You've come to far now, Bernie," he muttered to himself. "I'm goin' in."

"You sure that's a good idea?" Bernie froze at the voice, slowly turned to see a young boy, probably seven or eight, standing a few feet away, watching him.

Bernie blinked at the kid. "Where'd you come from?"

The kid looked over his shoulder, and Bernie followed the kids gaze to a driveway leading to a trailer on the other side of the road. The trees must have hidden it from view on approach because he definitely hadn't noticed that until now. "Over there. Won't you get arrested or something?"

"Only if I get caught," he responded, already ignoring the kid for the most part as he dug in his van to gather his bag and the stuff he'd need, especially the Geiger counter.

"So what? Are you like a storm chaser for titans or something?" He looked up to see the kid watching him through the other window.

Wondering how much he should tell the kid, he decided to just shrug. "Something like that. I'm just trying to find the truth."

"About what?" At least the kid seemed genuinely curious.

"About a lot of things," he answered vaguely. The kid didn't seem at all satisfied by that. "You want to know more?" He nodded. "Then check out my podcast, 'Titan Truth'. You'll learn everything you want to know about what I do."

"Okay." He jumped down from the side of his van when Bernie pulled out his bag and shut the door. He took a few steps off the road, the kid still watching him, before he paused and turned around. "Oh...and don't tell anyone you saw me."

The kid made a gesture of zipping his lips, and Bernie nodded in satisfaction before making his way down the ditch on his way to get as close as he could to the King of the Monsters.

He had only made it about halfway to the titan, his Geiger counter still reading that the air was clear of radiation. That alone surprised him, so he made a note of it in his electronic notebook. "So we know that titan radiation tends to linger in an area, just like regular radiation. I mean Chernobyl is supposed to be uninhabitable for twenty thousand years. And over the past five years, we've seen the lingering effects of the titans' radiation in the ruins of Las Vegas and San Francisco. Rather than killing or mutating all the flora and fauna in the area, titan radiation seems to replenish life itself. Maybe that's an over poetic way of putting it, but all I know is that those cities are absolutely teeming with plant life we thought died out millions of years ago."

He was quiet for a moment as he thought about what that meant. "Maybe...Maybe the titans' radiation isn't strictly harmful. Like, it can definitely be harmful. Godzilla's atomic breath is evidence enough for that. But...what if it isn't naturally harmful? What if there were no adverse effects to being exposed to it? Because I'm currently...just under a kilometer away from Godzilla right now, and my Geiger counter isn't even picking up any radiation. Now, for that to be the case with the most radioactive titan on the planet, especially on a battlefield where two titans had been fighting and atomic breath and whatever that other titan used were flying all over the place...something ain't right. We have to be missing something, right? Like...maybe titan radiation and regular radiation are two completely separate things and the former cannot be detected by tools that measure the latter."

As the implications of that hit him, he stopped and looked around. "So, if that's the case, I really hope titan radiation isn't harmful. Otherwise, I'm probably way too close to one right now."

"Remember the Janjira incident back in '99? It was caused by a titan, right? Of course, we didn't know it was at the time. However, that quarantine zone was the only one with measurable radiation levels, even though the ones in Vegas and San Fran had radiation warnings, too. So what's the difference? Why is Janjira the only titan quarantine zone with measurable radiation? Because of the nuclear power plant, baby! Oh yeah! We on ta somethin'!" Before he could pat himself on the back for his excellent deductive reasoning, he heard a sound not unlike an explosive outrush of air.

That's when he noticed Godzilla moving. "Uh oh..." He looked around frantically for somewhere to hide and booked it for a fallen log strewn across another ditch big enough for him to hide under. "I just hope he don't step right here..." he muttered as he hunkered down.

"Ugh..." As he slowly regained consciousness, the first thing he became aware of was how badly his gills hurt. Lances of burning agony shot across his entire neck from Ghidorah's final attack. The very memory of his decisive defeat made him growl as he opened his eyes. Looking around, he saw no sign of his nemesis. Even the scent seemed old. The only thing he could smell was the stench of his burned skin and the exhaust of the various human flying machines circling him. A single glare and a warning snort was enough to send all of them scattering away from him.

Now that they were gone, he groaned in pain and stood, shaking himself to scatter the dirt and debris that had stuck to his scales. He sighed and glared at the intact human city and then at the trail of destruction leading west. His former prey must have gone off that way, but its scent was likewise old. There was no way he'd catch up to it.

There was no reason to stay here, but before he could turn to leave, he heard a strange noise from the debris field, like a faint ringing. His gaze swept across the battlefield before landing upon where the noise seemed to originate. A fallen tree laid across a ditch, and upon scenting the air, he could smell that there was a human hiding there. Briefly, he saw the human, a wider one with black skin, peer out at him before hiding when the little creature noticed him glaring right at it.

With a dismissive snort, he turned away from the lone human, the city, and the field of destruction he'd left behind. Now, he had begun his long march back to the ocean, his mind alight with anger.

Ghidorah's comment about having gotten soft since their last battle flashed through his head, making him growl. As much as he hated to admit it, he sort of had. Ghidorah was his greatest adversary. Always had been. Probably always would be. In the time since his final defeat—which didn't turn out to be as final as he'd hoped—the other titans had pushed their luck against him a lot less. He had proven himself beyond them by finally defeating the greatest threat their planet had ever faced.

Basically...he was out of practice.

Coming out of hibernation for the first time in thousands of years, the others could sense his weakness. It's why the titans were acting out, challenging him again and finding him a much easier opponent than they remembered.

Of course, the less severe side of his mind told him he was being too hard on himself. Five years ago, he fought two opponents at once, which is never easy no matter how strong you are. And now, he's fought Ghidorah, who had always been stronger than him, and Tiamat, the one titan he could never fully control.

Those were two extremely strong opponents to be measuring himself against.

Maybe he should ask Rodan for a practice bout just to see where he was when put up against one of the—and no offense to his friend—weaker titans.

The other thing that Ghidorah said that bothered him was how they had showed him mercy. They themselves pointed out that they could have killed him and chose not to. He wondered what they wanted to discuss about 'the future of this planet' as they put it.

It didn't take long for an answer to present itself to him. Ghidorah wanted to discuss who would rule as King. The very thought made his blood boil in rage! Ghidorah saw him as too weak to fight and wanted to negotiate instead! That was the only possibility!

They thought his defeat was inevitable, that no matter how hard he fought, they would always win! They just wanted to spare him the 'disgrace' of losing...but surrendering without a fight was a greater disgrace than anything else.

No...there would be no peaceful discussion. There would only be the fight for dominance, one that one of them wasn't walking away from. He didn't care if he needed to wake all the titans and force them to obey, overwhelming the hydra with sheer numbers alone. He didn't care how long this fight would take or how much humanity may suffer.

Ghidorah. Must. Die...

AN: There's Big G's pride showing its ugly head again. Things are certainly escalating. How far they will is the question.

Also, we get to see some of Bernie's antics. I liked writing him, even if I didn't go too far into his quirks. But I think getting a closer look at him and why he does what he does was a net positive. What do you guys think?

Until Next Time

AdmiralCole22