Creation began on 12-02-21

Creation ended on 04-29-22

Godzilla: The Planet Eater

Both Must Fall: Pull Back or Burn

A/N: Live free or die, stay or go, surrender or persist, all of which are fight or flight terms. Most would rather do the one that enables them to live than the one that causes them to die. Whichever choice they consider to be the lesser of two evils. In this case, it's pretty much what the title says.

Ghidorah's storm raged with intensity as many of the ecological changes caused by Godzilla Earth's unimpeded dominance over the planet began to lose their parasitic cohesive, like a fire of sorts was unleashed upon the land that eradicated all that stood in its way. The flora and fauna produced by the parasitic plant doppelgänger scattered and tried to get away from the three-headed nightmare, but they could only get so far from its sphere of influence that grew as the storm did. Those that could only crawl or slither on the land shriveled up and wasted away…and those that could fly fell to the ground and did death rattles before succumbing to what was either hypoxia, dehydration or starvation. Even the trees that contained the trace amounts of Godzilla Earth's properties were beginning to waste away because of the storm.

"Rrrrraaurgh!" Varan and Baragon roared as the rain started to scald their hides.

"Aaaaurgh!" Anguirus cried as it tried to retreat back into the ocean water.

-x-

"The storm's getting worse and it's affecting the atmospheric temperature," one of the people informed on the submarine. "This is Hell!"

Haruo and the others were fortunate that the submarine could still provide oxygen in case the storm caused difficulties with producing enough air that hadn't become toxic, but if the planet had any chance of surviving, with them included, Ghidorah needed to be stopped. But the greatest question in their heads was the most pressing one by far now: How could these giant beasts that, according to what Monarch had discovered back before the discovery of Godzilla Earth being a parasitic plant with metal fibers, were viewed as gods by ancient civilizations before the rise of modern civilization back then…defeat a three-headed devil from beyond the stars that seemed to persist long after death?

Some of them worried that even the real Godzilla, fully revived and empowered by their attempt to restore his health, wasn't strong enough to deal with Ghidorah, and he'd dealt with the invasive species before.

Clang-clang-clang! An alarm went off.

"What's going on?" Adam questioned.

"A spike in radiation levels was detected," revealed one of the men as they checked the anomaly. "It's coming from Godzilla!"

"How bad is it?" Haruo asked.

"It's bad. The energy readings are unstable!"

"It would seem that our attempt to revive Godzilla earlier has had unintended side-effects," Metphies stated; since they were dealing with a creature that was designated by an organization that specialized in searching for and studying these great beasts, their understanding of the individual creatures was limited to whatever data was preserved.

Yuko then asked a question that was the most unlikely one.

"What will happen if Godzilla continue to become unstable?" She asked.

"There's a chance that he'll explode like an atomic bomb," Martin answered.

-x-

Godzilla felt the energy he absorbs and feeds off of rising within himself, just like before in his last battle with Ghidorah that led to his victory. Except this time, it felt worse than before; the energy was greater and Mothra's life force had been absorbed by him to even him out, but his previous injuries caused by his plant-like doppelgänger hadn't fully healed, despite the energy having sped up his healing. He needed a few minutes to gather himself up. Even just five minutes would suffice.

"Aaaaaaurgh!" Ghidorah's heads shrieked as his wings were struck by the lightning generated by his storm, as if reenergizing him. "Rrrrrraaurgh!"

"Grr," Godzilla growled.

"Aaurgh!" Varan roared to Godzilla, getting his attention. "Rrraugh!"

In a very human-like reaction, Godzilla's left eye twitched a little. What Varan had spoke was very…very selfless. However long it took them, however much it took of them, they all waited for him to return to full strength, to reclaim his place as the alpha, the king of all from his soulless doppelgänger…and now they needed to stop the return of this ghost from the past from taking the planet that they all lived on and needed to return back to its previous glory.

"Grr," Godzilla grunted in acceptance; no matter what it took of them, they needed to prevail.

"Aaaurgh!" Anguirus howled, rolling into a ball once more, and Varan grabbed hold of it as it took flight into the air.

Godzilla needed as much time as they could give before he could resolve this battle with Ghidorah for good. Just as he was with Mothra, he would be forever indebted to everyone else that helped him to reclaim his position as the alpha. This was their world, and they needed to defend it from those that didn't belong…and those that were too dangerous to belong, anymore.

Ghidorah refused to be intimidated by these lower life forms that served no measure of anything to do with this world. With his world! This was his world now…and he was taking it from these unworthy, wretched scum.

-x-

The submarine stayed submerged in case Godzilla did become so unstable that he would explode, but the damage he'd cause if he did would still be devastating due to his nature of feeding off of radiation.

"…Wait a minute, what do you mean, the damage will be catastrophic?" One of the men asked.

"What I mean is that the damage will be catastrophic if he does explode," Martin explained. "Worse than trying to destroy his doppelgänger with all of those nuclear weapons at the same time. A burst of energy unseen since the beginning of anything. Think of the planet as a bag of popcorn and Godzilla as the microwave. When he goes boom, we all fry."

It seemed that by reviving Godzilla with a nuke to deal with his doppelgänger had caused more problems than they were able to deal with. They just wanted to return home and have a future like before. And now…now, there was no future for any of them if they couldn't survive an explosion that would leave nothing left standing.

Haruo blamed himself for this. He wanted to stop Godzilla back when he thought he was the enemy. If he could take it all back, just to go back in time to a better day, he would've.

Don't give up, he thought he heard a voice speak up just now. It's not over yet.

"What?" A woman asked. "Did anyone else hear a voice just now?"

"Yeah," a man expressed.

It's not over yet, that voice told them again. Have faith. There is a future for all of you.

-x-

It didn't violate any boundaries he had in this predicament, but Brother Correction wanted the people inside the submarine to know that as long as they still had time to live, they still had time for a future. So long as they continued to have faith, they would have a future. On this Earth as they would any other planet that could sustain life. And as he watched the final bouts of Varan and Anguirus against Ghidorah, he shed two tears for the Titans that gave it their all to reclaim their home.

Ghidorah unleashed his gravity beams upon the two monsters, erasing them from his presence with all of his hatred, infuriating Godzilla further.

"Aaaaurgh!" The heads shrieked in triumph as there was no trace of either beast that thought a dive bomb assault would best him.

Floating in the air where he had the best view of the battle, Brother Correction frowned as he spoke these old words that carried volumes of righteousness in their tone.

"Long live…the king," he expressed.

In the clearing smoke and debris of Varan and Anguirus' ashes, a glow of bright orange emerged from the darkness.

-x-

"…What the Hell is that?" Mori heard a member of the Bilusaludo ask as something bright orange appeared on the planet's surface.

"Is that a volcano erupting?" A woman questioned.

"It can't be a volcano," a man spoke. "They don't glow like that."

If only they were down there or had working satellites, they could see what it was.

-x-

Ghidorah had seen this form of his ancient rival the day he had been killed…and he feared it because he stood no chance against him while like this. Worse, he could sense the lingering presence of the other creature he had killed before. Memories of his initial death, thousands of years past long ago, recalled as though they were only the day before, made him realize that the only reason he died a physical death by this enemy was only because he was on the ground when he should've been in the air like he was now. So long as he stayed airborne and away from Godzilla, he would be safe from his sphere of influence that only led to one place…and he wouldn't go back to that state of existence again.

Godzilla, empowered by the life energy from Mothra's sacrifice all over again, knew that so long as Ghidorah was in the air and away from him, he couldn't hurt him; a creature that could fly had an advantage in evasion against a creature that could only move on land and sea. And worse was this empowered state was only temporary; it was taking him everything to keep his power calm so he could unleash it later when he needed it most.

Ghidorah sneered at his foe with his middle head. All he had to do was stay in the air and wait this threat to his life.

THWACK! Something struck Ghidorah in his right wing, creating a big tear in it that threw off his aerial stability, causing him to fall to the ground until he could regenerate.

"Aaaaurgh!" His heads shrieked as he crashed onto the ground.

Rising up as quick as he could, he failed to react as Rodan flew towards him and struck him with a blow to the heads, knocking him back down and leaving minor burns. Suddenly, the temperature around him felt hotter than it did whenever he caused his death-dealing storm to act up, and he rose back to his feet to see Godzilla steadily approaching, as radiant as the last time they fought, many lifetimes ago. He spread his wings as he prepared to take off, but the tear in his right wing hadn't regenerated enough to provide lift…and Godzilla was too close now.

"Grrrraurgh!" Godzilla roared, letting the energy surge around him.

Rumble! Strange noises came from within Godzilla as arcs of electrical energy emanated from his back spikes.

BLAST! Godzilla unleashed his nuclear pulse upon Ghidorah, letting the three-headed outsider know every layer of not just his own fury, but the fury of the planet itself that was his home…and how he, just like the creature that had stolen his position as the one in charge…didn't belong here.

"Iiiiiieee!" Ghidorah felt the presence of Mothra within the nuclear pulse that razed his wings that he used to shield himself from the intense heat.

"Aaaaurgh!" Ghidorah unleashed his gravity beams upon Godzilla like before, but they didn't harm him as he advanced towards him. "Aaaaaurgh!"

This couldn't be happening! He had already died once before, and he was about to die again! This was ridiculous and a heavy blow to his ego. It just reminded him of how, so many generations ago, how he had left his former world because of how nothing there would be his so long as he stayed in the shadows of his older and more powerful relatives (A/N: Using the information based on what was stated in the past of Godzilla: King of the Monsters).

As a member of the strongest hierarchy, he was entitled the right to rule all else around him. But because he was just another member of long-lived hierarchy, just another child of a race of rulers that would have to wait in line like everyone that came before and after him, he would never inherit anything from his elders. He would be forced, like others waiting for their chance to reign supreme, to wait for an eternity…and he couldn't wait that long for something that would never happen…and so he abandoned his world, his system of planets, searching for one outside the hierarchy's control, spending ages traversing the sea of stars and gases, finding this lowly sphere of life that possessed those he perceived to be weaker than he was…and where he could rule his own domain once he remade it his own image. But he was met with resistance, which eventually led to his demise.

The storm was meant to cleanse the planet of all life that belonged. Once all life that opposed his rule was removed, he would alter the storm to harden the oceans and form new landmasses, make the atmosphere suitable to his liking. And when the skies were smoldering at just the right temperature, he would create new servants in his own image. His only other thoughts were to access the power that lay deep in this planet to boost his own powers to levels comparable to those of his former world's elders.

But when he perished from the flames of his foe, he ended up in a purgatory-like state that prevented him from accessing the realm of his ancestors that had evolved to no longer need their physical bodies and manipulate gravity to feed upon other worlds. However, that only lasted for a short while before he entered their domain…where he was reminded that he was at the bottom of their hierarchy and would never be as strong as his ancestors had become. He was left with only two choices: Submit and leave their domain, wandering around the ocean of stars for eternity. Naturally, due to his ambitions for being a ruler of a world of his own, he chose to abandon this world of the energy beings that were the ancestral masters of his race; he would rather rule in damnation than to serve in paradise. It was this abandonment of his primordial past that led him back to this world…and to the remains of a body molded in the image of his killer, taking it after wandering aimlessly across space for what felt like an eternity…and reclaiming the life he lost.

"Grrrraaurgh!" Godzilla roared as he closed the division between them like before.

BLAST! Another nuclear pulse was unleashed on Ghidorah, destroying his left and right head, just like before, leaving him with most of his body maimed!

"Aaaaaurgh!" He shrieked, falling to his back due to his feet being burned away to nothing. "Aaaaaurgh!"

Godzilla raised his left foot up and brought it down on Ghidorah's chest like a hammer driving a nail through wood, digging his talons deep into the hardened scales and flesh, sending his nuclear pulses into the revived foe. This time, he would make sure there was no trace of Ghidorah; the fact that he didn't do so when he gained the loyalty of the other creatures after he defeated Ghidorah the first time around was part of the reason he had difficulty keeping order among them after he became the alpha over all of them, as there were those that tried to persist in acting out even after they realized they stood no chance against him. Incinerating the body with everything he had, Godzilla laid down the hurt against his resurrected foe…and whatever remained of his doppelgänger that couldn't coexist with the rest of the world so long as it misbehaved, sending them both back to the nothingness they came from.

"GRRRRAAURGH!" He roared louder as he unleashed one more nuclear pulse from his body, letting it spread across the land like a great tsunami that washed across the streets of an island.

-x-

The computers on the submarine and the Aratrum detected an unbelievably massive spike in the radioactivity that was being unleashed! It was far greater than the radioactivity unleashed when they had tried to get rid of the false Godzilla over twenty-thousand years ago. Up in the Aratrum, the inhabitants could see a great burst of light that was larger than any flare they could possibly imagine. It was like…a beacon had been lit up in the heavens and had descended down into the underworld.

"What the Hell was unleashed down there?" A woman questioned.

Meanwhile, in the submarine, protected due to being submerged deep underwater, Haruo and the others felt like Godzilla had become a burst of energy that had been unseen since time began, finally exploding with greater the force of all nuclear weapons put together. But if the power unleashed was far worse than expected, then it wouldn't have mattered that there was no place left to run to.

Yuko held onto Haruo's left hand as they waited for the inevitable, which seemed to be taking its sweet time with all of them.

Suddenly, the great brightness unleashed by Godzilla dissipated…along with the radiation.

"It's gone," went Adam, surprised.

"What are you talking about?" A woman asked him.

"The radioactivity," he explained. "It was unleashed by Godzilla, spreading across the whole terrain, and now it's not there, anymore. It's like…it was reabsorbed or transferred somewhere else. The levels are low."

They brought the submarine up to the surface of the water and opened the hatch, seeing a scorched forest that had once been mutated by Godzilla Earth's manipulation of the planet's surface to suit only him. It must've been burnt for miles on all sides, leaving only the scorched soil as a sign that life once prospered. But from the ashes, the people could see that, despite the burst of power that had been unleashed, the creatures that they had learned of over the ages and relearned of recently, the Titans, were unscathed. At least those that remained.

Rodan, Titanosaurus, Manda, Baragon and Gorosaurus, all looking as though they were just afflicted with a sunburn than a major burn, but otherwise fine. And in front of them, a looming behemoth of charred flesh in the shape of Godzilla, standing over the charred remains of King Ghidorah, its final head locked in a state of agony as it looked as though it gave off a death rattle.

"Is he…" Haruo wanted to know; for the longest time, he had nothing but hatred towards Godzilla for his perceived attacks of cruelty towards the world of humanity, but after learning that he was never responsible for those attacks to begin with, his hatred was only for the pretender that caused all that pain and suffering.

Rattle! The charred body of Godzilla shook as a growl was heard.

It moved its head, causing the charred flesh to fall off, revealing Godzilla was still very much alive…and Ghidorah was reduced to nothing but dust in the wind.

"Rrrrrrrrraaaurgh!" He roared, shaking the charred remnants off his body, exhaling a cloud of smoke from his mouth. "Grrrr…"

Metphies couldn't believe that this was the real Godzilla and that he was able to defeat a creature that was so intertwined with his own people's history that he felt like the universe had forced his eyes to open again to something new. His faith, his devotion, his loyalty to his god, that was all due to the belief that life was meaningless, and yet…something caused those to believe that life had meaning, even when it was impossible to fully understand.

Life has meaning, but only when you allow it to envelop you, he thought he heard a voice again, the same one that had spoken to everyone in the submarine moments before not to give up hope. Life, when lived, when embraced, has all the meaning it needs to have in order to be fulfilling. There is no science or technology, no form of religion or practice that can tell you what you want to know. The only way to know…is to live until the day your life ends. When the time comes, when you can no longer go on, when your heart stops beating and your breath runs out, you will know all that you need to know about life's meaning and more. For now, just live. Live and help others to live. Help others to prosper, to rebuild, to regenerate. You have your whole future ahead of you now.

Who are you? He needed to know.

I am…an eternal servant and master of the beyond, the voice responded. I am retribution and redemption, damnation and salvation, a tormentor and a savior. Past, present and future, all at the same time to some, to others, to everyone…and no one.

It was cryptic at best, but Metphies had no other alternative but to accept that answer. With Ghidorah gone, no doubt returned to the nothingness from whence it came, what the Exif normally did with other races was no longer possibly. The god they served would have to go on without any access to the Earth. And on a newfound personal level, Metphies couldn't see the Earth succumbing to the gravitational hunger of Ghidorah. Not then and not now.

"Godzilla," went Martin in awe of the monster's victory over Ghidorah and Godzilla Earth. "He's truly a god incarnate. Thank God he's on our side."

For now, at least, Metphies thought.

-x-

A video communication signal came to the Aratrum, and Mori was greeted with Haruo's face on a screen.

"You're still alive?" He questioned.

"We're all still alive," Haruo answered him.

"And this…doppelgänger of Godzilla and whatever else was out on the planet?"

"Dead. Killed by the real Godzilla and several other monsters that were able to survive."

The screen then showed a static video of Godzilla, Rodan, Baragon and Titanosaurus walking away from the scorched grounds.

"So, then…it's over?" Mori asked him.

"Yes," Haruo answered. "While these monsters still exist…it is over because the fake Godzilla and this Ghidorah are gone. We can return to Earth now."

There would be talk about this later on. Questions on whether or not these remaining creatures were safe to let run loose. But for now…for now, the danger seemed to have finally passed. The threat to their lives, both individually and as a whole…had finally been quelled like a cancer that had been spreading around for years being burned out.

Now, it was time to return to the world they had been forced to abandon. Now was the time…to return to the place humankind called home…and where people from beyond the stars had hoped to call their home, too.

"Let's go home," Mori uttered, happy for the fact that he was finally returning to Earth for the first time in a long time.

-x-

It was an unprecedented discovery, but the fact that the Houtua had found it because they were fortunate to survive Godzilla's attack on Ghidorah. Even when the others had returned to make sure that the Houtua were still intact, it was something they weren't prepared to see, but it would've answered how Ghidorah was defeated.

"What…is that thing?" Yuko questioned as she, Haruo, Martin and Adam looked at the object embedded in the ground.

It was some sort of…weapon, made of some sort of bone for the handle and a grayish-black spike for a blade of some kind. If one looked at it from a different angle, the blade itself looked as though it belonged to Godzilla's back.

"It's some type of weapon," Martin realized. "An axe or war hammer of some kind."

"But…how'd it get here?" Adam wondered, looking at Miana and Maina. "Do either of you know where this came from?"

This relic of time, he heard their voices in his mind, thrown from the land below. To save this land, it was released.

"It was…thrown?" Yuko asked.

"The question now is…who or what threw it?" Haruo wondered.

To be continued…

A/N: Man, this was quite a chapter to work on. But what do you think about it now that it's finished? The chapter, not the story. There's still much to be done, much that could be done in the canon of the Monsterverse if they go that far. I look forward to your reviews and questions until the next chapter.