Disclaimer: Uchuu Senkan Yamato belongs to Yoshinobu Nishizaki and was written by Leiji Mastumoto. Godzilla and other well-known Daikaiju fall under the ownership of Toho.
Planet Earth was dying, as the past several months of 2199 A.D. had reminded Dr. Serizawa. Once, he had lived fifty years blissfully unaware of the great alien threat that would lay waste to Earth, which did over the past few years. Serizawa, given his job, had little time to fall into despair or hysteria like the rest of the rabble of civilians. He had his work, and he felt his work was about to pay off today.
"This is Dr. Serizawa. Time and date… well, I guess it won't matter if those meteorites break through here."
The latest strikes on the surface proved Serizawa's morbid report which he recorded for the now-united governments of the world. In his underground bunker some hundreds of feet beneath the surface, the good doctor did his best to keep himself and his nearby equipment still. A sigh of relief escaped his aged lips when the tremor passed.
"Any damage?" he called to the other scientists nearby, his voice filtered through his hazmat suit.
"No, sir!" said one of many other scientists.
"Then, keep working!"
With that, Serizawa walked carefully across the rocky cavern and passed the several others monitoring the equipment while dressed in hazmat suits themselves. Uncomfortable as they were (many complained about having "an itch down there"), they were the only protection from the enormous radioactivity. They were close enough to where said radioactivity leaked from the surface.
Serizawa cleared his throat and spoke again to the recorder in his helmet. "Now where was I? Ah, yes! In my previous reports, I mentioned that due to the radioactivity seeping into the surface, the Earth will only have a year at most before it becomes inhabitable for humanity. We are incapable of faster-than-light travel, and I do not believe our so-called 'friends' from beyond will provide us another warp drive."
Serizawa stopped himself before he could comment on the "gift" from the so-called friendly aliens who had reached out to Earth's government. He had been shot down by his superiors for simply "expressing his concerns" about the mission for the home world of their 'rescuers,' called Iskandar-if it even existed. He didn't want to get on their bad side any more than he already had.
"However, you may remember in my latest report, I mentioned an area in the Pacific, where there was a drop in radiation."
'A drop' was a slight exaggeration on Serizawa's part, but he had no other words to describe it, or the giant chasm lying beneath him. He stopped his aged old feet by the edge of the chasm, so he didn't fall in. Multiple jagged spikes, the size of houses, stuck out like spears from the chasm's bottom. What, or whom, they were attached to had been the result of several days of searching and looking at geiger counters. They had all led to this point, to this beast absorbing all the nearby radiation while it slept or hibernated. Serizawa's data had been correct, and if he could extrapolate some more, then he may have found one of many answers to humanity' predicament.
"The survey team has confirmed it, and I… I am looking down at him." Serizawa held back a laugh, but not from the joy and fear rising in his voice. He felt like he was forty years younger, a mere kid play-acting in the schoolyard. "It is incredible. We thought him just a legend. Nothing more to scare children at bedtime. Now, I realize he was more than just that. I… I understand the fears of my colleagues, but we may not have another chance. Humanity has progressed since the days of the mere ballistics, and if we can spare just a few dozen for him, we can-"
Another strike from above shook the cavern, much more violently this time. Serizawa yelled and cursed as someone caught him and dragged back before he fell into the chasm. "Are you alright, old-timer?" asked his savior, a young woman who was part of the survey team.
Serizawa first opened his mouth to reprimand the young lass, but he closed it when the meteorite strike passed. In the following silence, he heard it from the monitoring equipment. Everyone else did, too.
Ba-bump… Ba-bump… Ba-bump...
"Sir, his heat signature is rising!" called out one from the survey team.
Another by some beeping computer said, "Machines indicate brain waves are increasing!"
More came, but Serizawa drowned out the rest. His lips quivered with the cavern from what was below, not above. The tips of the spikes shuddered, and what could've been a soft rumble echoed loudly all over the cavern.
"H-he's waking up." Serizawa turned to everyone. "Everyone, run! HE'S WAKING UP!"
Serizawa remembered running with everyone else. He remembered the sounds of whatever equipment not bolted down being carried off quickly. Serizawa had not grabbed a thing. Like in the boy in the schoolyard, Serizawa ran from the "monster." Only this no was play-acting, and the monster was very real.
When Serizawa fell, everything else was a bit of a blur. Someone had grabbed him-must've been the same woman who pulled him from the chasm-and he found himself pulled onto one of the few hovercars with the other scientists. When he fully came to, he barely made out the cries of everyone on the hovercar and over the communiques.
"Get us out of this cavern!"
"The tunnels back are blocked off!"
"Then, get us to the surface!"
"But the radiation-!"
"Better there than here!"
As the hover car carried Serizawa further and further from the excavation site, he and everybody else saw the spikes rising from the pit and hitting the cavern roof. With the spikes came a large green mass, its minute features indistinguishable in the falling debris. It was the last Serizawa would see before the hover cars rose through their getaway, the long and tedious road system up to the surface. The fact it hadn't collapsed as well was a miracle.
That fact alone let the doctor and his crew all escape to the surface. Once Serizawa saw the bleeding orange sky, he also saw the growing mountainous mounds of what used to be the floor of the Pacific Ocean. The further Serizawa and his crew got away, the less they felt the tremors. Everyone could still hear the cacophony from their planet, as if it screamed in pain, over any instruments or messages sent back to command. Unable to turn away, they also saw the giant spikes piercing through the Earth's surface. Serizawa noted those who didn't at first certainly did after hearing what sounded like the typical meteorite striking the planet.
This terror emerged from below, not above. Bits of soil and bedrock fell from its green scales, as the giant spikes and clawed arms cut through the clouds of dust. Two mountainous legs left an avalanche of destruction, and the massive body they carried rumbled like a volcano about to erupt. Slowly, the monster stood upon the land in full view. Even from so far away, all could see a snarling snout and dagger for eyes rising upwards.
"My god," Serizawa heard, and he could only agree.
Looking at the terrifying incarnation of might and power, Serizawa recalled a recording he had seen in school. It was of an old American man, his face weighed down and his eyes haunted by the very thing he helped to make. The same weapon which had been used on Serizawa's homeland over a hundred and fifty years ago. Any apathy for the man was gone, replaced by the same horror which Serizawa felt as he quoted the old man.
"'Now, I have become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.'"
A roar answered Serizawa. It was indeed the roar of a destroyer. A devastating roar that announced the world of its-of his-return.
"Is that…?" said the woman beside Serizawa.
Serizawa nodded. "Godzilla."
AN: Just an idea I had back in 2021. I thought it was an interesting tidbit, especially given how Godzilla was a metaphor for the atomic bomb and the titular spaceship Yamato had a weapon so powerful that might as well have been one as well. Not sure if I will ever get to this but for now, I hope you like it. Until next time, take care.
Raika out.