Disclaimer: I do not own any aspects of the Godzilla franchise.
Notes: And we're back! I'm so sorry it took so long to get the next chapter written for this fic, but I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out, and I hope you all enjoy!
Some additional music for the playlist: Scylla's theme for this AU is "Breaking Point" from the River Monsters soundtrack, and the music for the fight scene in this chapter is "Grasslands: Hunting Buffalo Herds" from the Planet Earth 2 soundtrack. There are a couple of other themes I've got in mind for characters who appear in this chapter, but those would be spoilers here so I'll save them for the end-notes.
Chapter 3: A Break in the Pattern
Infant Island, Indonesia
May 2020, one year after the Battle of Boston
The King was dreaming.
In his sleep, he drifted into a memory from many decades earlier. It wasn't long after he had emerged from hibernation, roused from his sleep by a strange metal fish that had wandered close to his sleeping place. After rising to the surface, he had been pleased to discover that the world had warmed a great deal over the past few millennia, driving away the chill of the Cold Times and making the surface of the planet much more suitable for him. As a matter of habit, he'd begun swimming along his usual patrol routes, trying to figure out if any other Kaiju had woken up yet. Apart from the distinctive energy trail of a wandering sky-dragon, he hadn't found anything, which was enough to convince him that he was one of the first surface Kaiju to emerge from their long sleep.
A few months later, though, he had been swimming through the deep ocean when something new caught his interest: a sizable energy signature had appeared a few hundred miles away, alerting him to a possible food source. He initially thought that it must be an erupting volcano, but the more intently he focused his senses on it, the less sense that made: there were no explosions, no earthquakes, nothing to suggest that this energy source was something welling up from below the ocean floor. Regardless, his appetite had been provoked, as he hadn't had any substantial meals since before his hibernation, so he'd gone to investigate.
When he reached his destination, his confusion only deepened. The source was located on a small, tropical island, but one with no volcanic activity. As he swam into shallow water and lifted his head above the surface, he frowned when he caught sight of his target. On the island's beach, perched atop what looked like a spindly tree, was what appeared at first glance to be a small silver rock, oval-shaped and smooth. Despite its small size, the amount of energy contained within it was immense, far greater than anything he'd ever sensed coming from something that small. It certainly didn't seem to be dangerous, and it smelled delicious, so he moved forward to investigate.
Wading into the shallows and planting his feet under him as he reared up to his full height, the King glanced around to see if any other Kaiju might be nearby, but his senses told him that he was alone. Just in case, he tilted his head back and let out a loud, echoing roar, as a warning to anyone in the area that this food source was taken.
As he strode up onto the beach, he leaned down and sniffed curiously at the strange stone, trying to figure out what it might be. It couldn't be an egg, because he could tell that it was cold and lifeless, but he'd never heard of a stone that contained so much radiation.
"Strange," he murmured thoughtfully, tilting his head a little. What the hell is this thing?
And then the stone exploded with the loudest thunderclap that he'd ever heard, and everything around him was light and heat and fire.
The King's eyes snapped open, flashing from orange to blue for a second as he broke out of his dream. A moment later, his mind caught up with reality, and he remembered where he was: on his Queen's island, curled up on the great stone slab beneath the semicircle of waterfalls. His claws scraped across the smooth black stone beneath him, and he snorted as he rubbed one forearm across his face and shifted into a more comfortable position.
A year had passed since his defeat of the Golden One, and he had spent most of that time here. This island might not have an abundance of radiation, but the warm, humid weather here was a balm for his weary body, so he'd spent most of the past year napping and resting, only leaving occasionally to swim in the surrounding ocean. It had paid off, and physically he was fully recovered from his final battle against the Usurper, although he would still need to find a source of radiation and replenish his energy reserves at some point.
As he rolled lazily onto one side to stretch his muscles, the King continued to reminisce about the incident from his dream, the first time he'd encountered one of the humans' exploding radiation-stones. The blast itself had certainly been painful, and would have annihilated a lesser creature, but he'd made it through without sustaining more than some burns that quickly healed, partly thanks to the massive amount of energy that he'd absorbed from it. After that, he'd encountered a few more of the stones over the next few years, and had realized that the humans actually seemed to be presenting them to him as offerings. One of the stones had also proven to be quite useful to him in another way, when he'd been hunting a truly bizarre type of Kaiju known as a worm-swarm: a composite hive-creature made up of countless tiny insects all moving and thinking as one, their bodies all interlocked to create a much larger aggregate form. He had managed to catch the worm-swarm when it had been drawn to one of the humans' radiation-stones, and as they'd been fighting, the stone had exploded. He hadn't been seriously hurt by the blast, but due to its composite nature and much lower durability, the worm-swarm had been torn apart and incinerated, doing his work for him.
Sighing and shaking off those older memories, the King focused his mind on more recent events. While he'd been taking some well-deserved time off, his Queen had been much more active, taking full advantage of her new body and their hard-won peace. In the months since her transformation, she had gone through multiple pregnancies, creating several new eggs and traveling all over the world to deposit them in hidden nests, thereby reinforcing the source of her immortality. In addition, she'd spent quite a bit of time talking with her Singers and her two new Speakers – the current leader of the island's human tribe, and the young female whose voice had been blended with his to create the humans' strange noisemaker – to learn everything they knew about how the world had changed and how the humans had evolved while she'd been asleep.
As he thought back over the past year, however, the King frowned and his claws scraped across the stone again as he recalled the one thing that was bothering him: namely, the fact that over the past few months, his Queen had been acting… strangely. He'd first noticed it a few weeks after her transformation, when she'd returned to the island after taking a long flight around the world to get some strength into her new body's wings. Before she'd left, nothing had seemed to be wrong, but when she came back, he could immediately tell that something was bothering her. Her usual bright, cheerful attitude had been absent; instead, she'd been unusually quiet and reserved, and she hadn't wanted to talk about anything that she'd seen on her flight. When he'd tried to ask her what was wrong, she'd claimed that nothing had happened and that he didn't need to worry, but since the connection between their minds made it very hard for them to lie to each other, he could tell that she was hiding something.
Over the last few months, the King had been unsure of how to proceed. He'd known the Queen for millions of years, and this was the first time she had ever done something like this. Dishonesty usually wasn't in her nature. But as time went on, he kept noticing unusual behavior from her. When they were relaxing together on the great stone slab or on one of the island's beaches, she would often keep her eyes averted from his and would keep their casual conversations to a minimum, as if she were nervous or embarrassed about something. Since she had been busy with her pregnancies, he hadn't wanted to cause her any extra stress by pressing her, so he hadn't asked her about it, but he couldn't help feeling concerned.
In addition, the Queen had also developed a habit of regularly flying up to the summits of the island's three volcanoes, scattering the flying reptiles that normally roosted there. Whenever she did that, she would remain up there for hours, gazing off into the distance with an unreadable expression on her face. In all the millennia that they had spent visiting this island, she'd never done that before; when he had asked her about it, she'd claimed that she was simply absorbing energy from the volcanoes to help grow her unborn eggs. To be fair, her appetite always grew when she was pregnant, but she usually didn't need that much extra radiation.
Adding to the King's suspicions, the Queen had declined his offer to help her find good places for her to deposit her new eggs over the past year. In fairness, she'd had an explanation for that one: after what he had gone through in the short time since the Golden One had escaped from their icy prison, including two near-death experiences and a significant growth spurt, he'd been sorely in need of a nice long rest. As a result, she had insisted that he stay on the island and spend some time resting, while Scylla had volunteered to help her with the nest-building process instead. The squid-spider had spent a few weeks recovering from the Golden One's mind control after their arrival on this island, suffering from headaches and nightmares as lingering side effects, but once the Queen had reached her adult form, she'd used her telepathy and a small dose of her scales to restore Scylla's mind and body to full health.
While the Queen's logic for taking Scylla on her nestmaking trips instead of him did make sense, it also added to the King's growing suspicion that, for some reason, she was trying to avoid him. He was certain that something was bothering her, but it seemed like she didn't want him to know about it, and he had no idea what it could be.
Trying to push his doubts out of his mind, the King slumped back onto the warm stone beneath him, doing his best to relax. This time, however, he quickly found it impossible to fall asleep; he was already well-rested, and his thoughts were making him increasingly agitated. His eyes shifted back and forth beneath their lids, and a low, soft growl rumbled in his chest.
Finally, his eyes opened again, and he scowled. To hell with it. He was done napping for the moment, and maybe a swim in the ocean would clear his head and help him to relax. Growling softly as he stretched out his muscles, he rose slowly to his feet, towering over the surrounding jungle trees. Leaning over to where part of the huge, semicircular waterfall cascaded down from the cliffs high above, he dipped his head under the curtain of falling water, cooling himself and gulping down several mouthfuls. He could drink seawater without any difficulty, but freshwater usually tasted better.
Sighing and shaking his head to clear the water from his eyes, the King turned away from the falls and stepped off the huge slab into the river. He began wading downstream towards the ocean, his tail flicking back and forth behind him as he yawned and idly reached up one clawed hand to scratch at an itch in his gills. But as he walked, despite the beauty of the island, he couldn't keep his thoughts from drifting to the nagging questions that were still flickering in the back of his mind.
What's bothering you, Mosura? And why don't you want to tell me about it?
The sound of distant, booming footsteps jolted Madison awake. Her eyes snapped open, and she sat up in bed as the impacts slowly began to get louder, each one reverberating through the bedframe underneath her. Startled voices began to echo in from outside, and she hastily scrambled out of bed and started pulling on her socks and boots, immediately realizing what must be causing those sounds.
In the time that the Monarch team had been living on Infant Island – almost a year, now – they had significantly expanded their base camp within the ruins of Moan'stalan, the ancient city built by the Houtua tribe's ancestors. What had simply been an investigative camp was now a proper outpost, recently designated as Outpost 96, with the purpose of studying Moan'stalan's history and the island's unique ecology. When the team had first arrived, they'd been sleeping in tents, but after a few weeks of that, the Chen sisters had pulled some strings and gotten several top-of-the-line camping trailers flown in, to house them more securely and comfortably. Madison's trailer had two bedrooms, for herself and her dad, as well as a kitchen and a bathroom; there were several other trailers nearby, one brought in for the Chens and the others for the G-Team soldiers who were now the new outpost's security force.
By the time Madison made it outside, bounding down the steps and hurrying towards the river, Ling and her dad were already there, along with Barnes and several of the soldiers. Sure enough, after a few more seconds, the thunderous footsteps grew even louder, and Godzilla's immense form came into view around the bend in the river to their left, slowly making his way downstream. She had seen the Titan many times since their arrival on the island, but the sight of him standing at his full height and walking around still took her breath away. He'd spent most of the past year curled up and napping on the great stone slab where Mothra had gone through her metamorphosis, but it seemed that he was finally up and active again.
"Easy," Mark spoke up quietly, drawing the others' attention. "He doesn't look agitated or aggressive, so he'll probably just walk right past us." He looked nervous, as was to be expected given how close Godzilla was, but as Madison looked back up at the Titan King, she realized that he was right. Godzilla's body language and attitude was nothing like the anger that she'd seen when he'd waded out of the ocean into Boston to face off against Ghidorah; he looked fairly calm, although it was harder to tell since he didn't have the same facial expressions as a human.
Sure enough, though, Mark's hunch turned out to be right, as Godzilla just kept wading along the riverbed, the water sloshing around his legs and tail and sending waves rushing up onto the bank, which fell far short of where they were watching him from a hundred yards or so uphill. When he was almost out of sight, he snorted and shook his head, his tail lashing back and forth, before he strode off around another bend in the river and was gone, continuing downstream towards the sea.
Huh. Madison frowned as she gazed downriver after the departed Titan. Wonder where he's going?
Several hours later, Mark and Madison were seated in the main command center of the new outpost. In this case, it was just a conference room inside one of the larger trailers, but in this place you took what you could get. Ling was also in the room, sitting between them and working on setting up a video call to Castle Bravo. Once they'd used an observation drone to confirm that Godzilla was leaving the island and heading out to sea, she and Mark had decided that they needed to get in touch with Monarch's higher-ups and give them an update, just in case his departure had been prompted by something bad happening elsewhere in the world.
Reception from Infant Island was sometimes spotty, but fortunately, within a couple of minutes, the call went through, bringing up a view of Castle Bravo's command deck. Three people were in clear view: Ilene Chen, accompanied by Dr. Stanton and Colonel Foster. Both Chen sisters smiled warmly as soon as they saw each other, and Madison couldn't help but feel a bit of a pang in her stomach as she was reminded of her own long-dead brother Andrew. A couple of months after their arrival on the island, Ilene had been called back to act as the deputy to Monarch's new director, Cedric Guillerman, who had been elected to replace the late Ishiro Serizawa. Ling, however, had insisted upon staying behind, and had therefore been appointed as the head of the new Outpost 96, with Mark as her second-in-command and Madison acting as her unofficial assistant.
"Morning, you lot," Rick snarked, yawning and rubbing his eyes. Since Infant Island and Castle Bravo were basically on opposite sides of the planet, it was the middle of the night for them, which was another reason why it had taken some time to set up this call.
"My apologies for interrupting your beauty sleep, Dr. Stanton," Ling remarked dryly, "but we felt it was important."
"And you were right, Dr. Chen," Foster agreed, nodding firmly. "Thank you for the warning."
"Any updates on Godzilla?" Mark spoke up. "Do we have any idea where he's heading yet? Or any idea what might have prompted him to go on the move?"
"Not yet, but hopefully we will soon," Ilene replied. "We were able to track him for about an hour after he left Infant Island, and he was moving east, but then he dove deep and we lost him. He may have gone into another underwater tunnel like the one we found last year, but we haven't been able to confirm that yet."
"As far as anything that might've gotten his attention… we're still not 100% sure on that one." Rick checked something on his handheld tablet. "Mothra and Scylla are still in New Zealand, working on Her Majesty's latest nest; doesn't seem like anything's wrong there." A live video feed came up on the screen from one of Monarch's remote surveillance drones, showing the two Titans working together to dig into the side of a remote coastal mountain on New Zealand's North Island.
Madison felt a little thrill run through her when she saw Mothra on the screen, just like she always did. While Ilene, Ling and Daiyo had done most of their communicating with the Titan Queen over the past year, she had been able to join them on a few occasions, and it was always an awe-inspiring experience to commune with Mothra. Obviously, the older women had much more information to offer than she did about human history and the ways in which the world had changed since the last Ice Age, but she'd contributed as much as she could regardless. She'd also been present to observe the half-dozen pregnancies that Mothra had undergone since her transformation: it had been very surprising to learn that the Titan could reproduce so rapidly, but Ling had privately informed her that since all of Mothra's "offspring" were actually just reincarnations of herself, she was merely "re-stocking" her supply of extra lives, as a precaution to ensure her own safety.
"As for the others," Ilene took over, "none of them are causing any trouble for the moment. Rodan is still hibernating in Fiji, and he hasn't shown any signs of activity in recent months. The new MUTO hasn't gone anywhere since she settled down in the ruins of San Francisco, and Bunyip seems to be staying put near the mouth of the Fitzroy River in northwestern Australia. Mokele-Mbembe and Sekhmet are a little more concerning, as they might cross paths at some point in the next few months if they continue their current trajectories, but they've mostly been steering clear of towns and cities. There haven't been any recent sightings of Typhon, Sargon, Na Kika, or Leviathan…" She made eye contact with Madison and smiled faintly. "…Manda, I mean. And Kong and his two companions are still living peacefully on Skull Island."
"So if any Titans are the cause of this," Foster put in, "our best guess is that it might be Methuselah, Behemoth and Baphomet."
"Yeah, I was wondering about them." Mark frowned contemplatively. "Any updates on those three?"
"Actually, yeah," Rick confirmed. He punched in some commands on the keyboard in front of him, and a new display came up on the screen, replacing the video of Mothra and Scylla: a map of the Americas, with glowing dots indicating the positions of all the Titans that were currently located there. Currently, there were only four: a single dot on the Pacific coast of California, representing the new female MUTO, and three dots clustered together in southern Alaska.
Madison already knew what that meant, of course, as she'd been present for another meeting several weeks earlier, when her dad and Ling had been briefed on that situation. For reasons unknown, Methuselah and Behemoth – who had been peacefully isolated in a remote area of the Amazon rainforest for the past year, ever since they'd traveled down there after the Battle of Boston – had become active again, and had left their new territory for no apparent reason. Monarch satellites and aircraft had tracked the pair of Titans as they'd made their way north, up through Central and North America, all the way to Alaska. Once there, they'd crossed paths with Baphomet, another Titan who had been awakened by Ghidorah and had gradually migrated east across Russia to Alaska's western coast. Curiously, none of them had shown any aggression towards each other, although Mark had pointed out that among normal-sized animals, it was quite common for numerous different species of herbivores to coexist peacefully. The last they'd heard, the unlikely trio had begun moving south again, along the west coast of Alaska.
"So, we were tracking them, up until yesterday," Rick explained. "Then, somehow, we lost both Methuselah and Behemoth. And I mean completely lost them. No trace of either one of 'em; they've somehow managed to drop off the grid entirely." He entered in a command that zoomed in on Alaska, showing the three dots that represented the trio of Titans as they'd been the day before. Then he tapped a final key, and sure enough, the dots representing Methuselah and Behemoth blinked out, leaving Baphomet's alone. "We've still got eyes on Baphomet – she's heading inland now, moving southeast – but because we weren't watching them when the other two disappeared, we've got no freakin' clue where they went."
"Seriously?" Mark stared in disbelief at the map display. "How the hell did we manage to lose a pair of Titans?!"
"My best guess is, they must've found a Hollow Earth tunnel somewhere up there," Rick theorized. "Only way I can think of for how they managed to just vanish like that."
"We have our satellites scanning the area," Ilene added, "but we haven't managed to locate any energy signatures which would indicate a Hollow Earth entry point like the one we found last year. So if they did go into one, it must be shielded or hidden somehow, possibly underground or underwater."
"However they did it," Foster interjected, "if any of the other Titans did something to provoke Godzilla, it could have been those two. If they did what Dr. Stanton suggests and found an access point to the Hollow Earth, the energy surge from that might have woken him up." She sat up a little straighter in her chair. "Whatever the case, we're prepared to issue alerts if it turns out he's going anywhere near a populated area, and…"
At that moment, a blaring alarm suddenly echoed over the video call, and Madison's eyes widened as red lights began flashing in the Castle Bravo briefing room.
"What's going on?!" Mark demanded, half-standing before he realized that there was no point in going anywhere and sank back into his seat.
"Titan alert!" Rick called out, checking his tablet before hastily bringing up a new display on the video screen. The new image was a satellite map of a small island archipelago, with numerous little islands scattered around a pair of larger ones, and two glowing dots on the screen: one on the largest island, the other in the ocean a short distance away.
"Well, apparently we were wrong, folks," Rick commented grimly. "Godzilla just popped up in the south Pacific, a few miles west of Fiji." His typical sarcasm was abandoned as a concerned frown flickered across his face. "Looks like the big guy's checking in on Rodan."
Fiji…
The King cruised through the warm, shallow sea around a group of tropical islands, moving through the water with great sweeps of his tail. Seeking to dispel the itch in his scales, he'd decided to stop by and check on Rodan's new roost, making sure the fire-wing hadn't done anything that might cause any trouble for him. After how broken and dispirited his former friend had been the last time he'd seen him, in the ruined city where he'd killed the Golden One, he was pretty sure that Rodan wouldn't be dumb enough to do anything like that… but just in case, he wanted to know exactly where the fire-wing was now. Fortunately, it hadn't taken too long to find him, thanks to a change that the King was still getting used to.
He wasn't entirely sure when he'd figured it out – probably sometime during his off-and-on napping over the past year – but eventually, the King had realized that ever since the day when he'd absorbed his Queen's power during his final battle with the Golden One, something within him had fundamentally changed. His own energy hadn't been permanently affected by it, as the burning power that he'd used to kill his nemesis had faded away once he'd used it all up, but it seemed that absorbing so much of the Queen's essence, when she'd converted her entire body into a cloud of healing particles, had somehow expanded his senses beyond what they'd been before. They had already been extraordinary, by the standards of most creatures: he could sense large sources of energy from many miles away, and could hear all the sounds around him to such an extreme degree that his brain housed a mental map of all the world's oceans, just from hearing all the echoes of waves crashing onto distant coastlines.
Ever since their merging, however, he could also sense some things that he hadn't been able to feel before, the way he knew his Queen could. As he swam along, he didn't just sense the radiation deep below the seafloor; he could also feel the life energy of all the living things in the ocean around him, from tiny fish and crustaceans all the way up to distant pods of whales. And when he surfaced briefly, lifting his head above the surface and gazing up at the clear blue sky, he could even sense the distant swirls of exotic energy beyond the sky, created by the atmosphere and by the planet's magnetic field. This, he knew, was how Mosura always saw the world, but he'd never been able to do it before.
You gave me this, my love, he thought to himself, smiling faintly as he felt a surge of love and gratitude for his Queen. Thank you.
After a moment, though, he snapped back to the business at hand. Shaking his head and snorting out a mist of seawater, he ducked back under the surface and continued swimming towards a larger island up ahead, where he could sense Rodan's telltale energy signature. He didn't want to get into a confrontation with the fire-wing, just to get close enough that he could sense what Rodan was up to.
As he moved into the shallows and switched from swimming to wading, the King stopped, lifting the upper half of his body out of the water and gazing intently towards the distant volcano where he could feel Rodan's presence. That, plus a column of dark smoke rising from the volcano's peak which suggested that it had recently become more active, confirmed that he was in the right place. His eyes narrowed and he reached out with his senses, focusing on the fire-wing.
After a minute of examination, though, the King was satisfied by what he found. He could faintly hear Rodan's deep, slow breathing mixed in with the low, background rumble of the volcano, and the fire-wing's energy was calm and subdued, not flaring up at all. As far as he could tell, his former ally seemed to have gone back into hibernation once he'd found this new roost, or had at least settled down for a long nap, which suggested that he wouldn't be waking up again for some time.
Good to know. The King nodded in satisfaction, his irritated glare towards the volcano losing some of its intensity. That means he won't be bothering me again anytime soon. Turning away, he waded back out into deeper water, shifting back to swimming and propelling himself away from the island. While he'd been sympathetic towards Rodan a long time ago for their shared loss of Anguirus, the fire-wing's betrayal the year before had destroyed any positive feelings that he had still felt for the other Kaiju. Now, all he wanted from Rodan was for the fire-wing to stay the hell out of his way.
As the King moved out into deeper water, starting to head back west towards his Queen's island, something else caught his interest. He slowed down, shifting his head back and forth, and his eyes narrowed as he caught a hint of an unfamiliar scent on the current. For the first time in months, his mind turned to the other Kaiju that had been awakened by the Golden One, who had been freed from the usurper's control by his victory. He hadn't come across any of them over the last year, except for Scylla, Behemoth, Methuselah, and the female Jinshin-Mushi. But based on what he was sensing, another Kaiju was currently somewhere to the southwest of him, not too far away.
Well, it couldn't hurt to see who it is, he reasoned. Locking onto the scent, he dove deeper and increased his speed, heading towards the distant signature.
New Zealand…
Scylla carefully scraped the tip of one claw across the mountainside, sending another shower of dirt and small rocks cascading down into place. As she reached up to do it again, her gaze shifted over to where the Queen was perched atop an adjacent mountain peak, her wings tucked in and her glowing aura fainter than normal, as she recovered from the exertions of laying her newest egg. She looked the same as she usually did in her adult form: a glossy brown exoskeleton inlaid with patterns of blue bioluminescence, with soft white fur covering most of her body, and patterns of orange and gold across her wings, including the fiery orange eyespots at each wingtip. However, Scylla could also tell that her friend was breathing heavily, her posture sagging, clearly more tired than she would normally be after laying an egg.
You're pushing yourself too hard, Mosura, Scylla thought to herself. Shaking her head and letting out her species' version of a soft sigh, she turned her attention back to the task at hand.
This was the sixth egg that the Queen had laid since her most recent resurrection, and Scylla was starting to become concerned about her friend. Normally, the Queen stuck to a certain number of eggs, and would only lay another one after hatching into a new body, to keep her reincarnation cycle balanced. As a result, while she could generate and lay an egg whenever she wanted, she usually only did so once every few centuries, if not longer. So the fact that she had now laid six in the span of a single year was rather disconcerting. Whenever Scylla had tried to ask her about it, however, the Queen had dismissed her concerns, claiming that she was merely replenishing her supply of eggs and that there was nothing to worry about.
While the Queen had laid one of her eggs in one of her former temples – the one in the forests of the vast eastern continent, which had been left vacant after a previous egg of hers had hatched there recently – the other five had all been deposited in newly-constructed nests, burrows made in remote wilderness areas around the world. That was what had brought them here, to a seaside mountain on a relatively small island in the cold southern ocean. After finding an ideal spot, the Queen had dug out a short tunnel, sloping down to a larger, rounded nest chamber. She'd then carefully deposited her egg, which rolled gently down the tunnel into the nest and was caught by a layer of sticky silk that would hold it in place and prevent it from rolling around, in the event of an earthquake or something similar. While her eggs were fairly small by Kaiju standards at first, so they could fit comfortably inside her abdomen – although they were still easily big enough to accommodate at least a dozen adult humans – the egg would expand dramatically over time, as the unborn larva grew within its soft, flexible membrane.
Once the egg was safely inside the nest, the Queen had added her finishing touch: another layer of silk, forming a lid that sealed off the entrance tunnel. Unlike the white silk that she normally produced, which was just like the silk produced by tiny creatures like spiders and silkworms, this was a special variation that she'd developed, which was designed specifically for camouflage. As a result, its color could be altered to perfectly match any type of background – stone, sand, moss, and so on – to help conceal the nest. If she put enough effort into it, she could even create a type of translucent, energized silk that actually bent light around itself, making it nearly invisible. That version was much harder to make, so she only used it when she needed to transform in a place without any convenient hiding spots, as it allowed her to make a cocoon that was nearly impossible to see.
In this case, the silken lid that the Queen had created was a perfect match for the dark gray color of the mountain rock, making the tunnel entrance nearly invisible to any observer. All it needed now was an additional layer of soil and gravel to fully conceal the entrance, and Scylla had volunteered to take care of that part. A few more careful scrapes of her claws made sure that the tunnel entrance was fully covered, and she nodded in satisfaction, probing the mound of dirt gently with the tips of her tentacles to make sure that it wasn't going to collapse or crumble away.
"Perfect," she declared, before turning towards the Queen. "Mosura?" she called out softly. "What do you think?"
"What?" The Queen was caught off-guard by Scylla's call for a moment; she shook her head and chirped softly, before swinging around and nodding. "Oh… yes, of course!" Her wings flared out, and she leapt lightly from one mountain to the other, landing lightly beside Scylla and folding them again. Leaning down towards the now fully-concealed nest, she examined it for a few seconds before nodding decisively. "Yes, it looks good," she agreed, smiling wearily. "We can head back now."
Scylla frowned and shook her head, reaching out and gently brushing one of her claws against one of the Queen's wings. "No, Mosura, you need to rest first," she insisted. "You've been laying too many eggs too quickly, and you need time to recover." Her glittering silver eyes locked intently with the Queen's blue ones. "You know I'm right. And I'm sure the King's noticed it too, even if he hasn't said anything."
After a long moment, the Queen sighed and nodded. "Yes, you're right," she admitted quietly. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to worry you, or Goji. It's just…" She trailed off and looked away, fluttering her wings as her gaze drifted off towards the horizon again.
Scylla's frown deepened, and she felt a rush of concern. Although the Queen was far older than she was, Mosura's reincarnation cycle meant that she sometimes seemed much younger than her true age, since each new body was restored to the prime of her youth. As a result, Scylla sometimes felt like the older one in their friendship, giving her an instinctive urge to protect her friend.
"It'll be all right, Mosura," she murmured, brushing her tentacles reassuringly over the Queen's head. "Before we go back, why don't you go get some food and water? There are plenty of forests and lakes on this island, and that'll give you some time to rest too. I'll wait here and keep an eye on the nest until you're finished."
The Queen looked up at her, and her mandibles clicked together in a small smile. "Thank you, Scylla," she murmured. "You're right; that does sound good right now." Her wings fanned out again, her bioluminescence glowing a little brighter in shades of blue and gold, and she lifted off into the air. She circled around the mountain once, and then flew off inland.
Scylla sighed as her friend disappeared from view. Something was clearly bothering the Queen, based on how strangely she'd been acting over the past few months, and it was really starting to worry her.
What's going on with you, Mosura?
In the Coral Sea, to the northeast of Australia…
As the King closed in on the source of the scent, he dove deeper, descending towards the ocean floor and moving in a zigzagging pattern to help him home in on the other Kaiju that he was tracking. Finally, his senses enabled him to pinpoint the source, and he accelerated towards it.
A few minutes later, something came into view: a large seamount, an underwater mountain that rose close to the surface, but not close enough to break the surface and become an island. He could sense that the Kaiju he'd been tracking was here somewhere, but he couldn't tell exactly where, even when he used his newly-enhanced ability to detect life energy. Whatever type of Kaiju was here, they were very good at hiding.
After swimming in a couple of slow circles around the seamount, however, the King's patience ran out, and he scowled. "All right," he growled, veering off and stopping a short distance away from the mountain, floating upright in midwater with the occasional sweep of his tail to keep himself balanced. "Enough games. Whoever you are, I know you're there. Now show yourself." His voice deepened on the last two words, carrying the additional force of an Alpha command, and his plates flickered with blue light in the beginnings of an intimidation display.
For a long moment, the sea around him was silent, save for the many smaller fish that lived around the seamount. Then, finally, a low rumbling sound echoed through the water, and the top of the seamount suddenly came to life. The King jerked back in surprise as what had appeared to be a large rocky outcropping morphed and reshaped itself, splitting apart into a mass of coiling, writhing tentacles. The entire massive shape lit up with a shifting display of light and color for a few seconds, until the swirling patterns finally settled down and its true appearance was revealed.
Floating in front of the King was a creature that he quickly recognized: it was a rainbow-octopus, one of the most clever and stealthy types of Kaiju in all the world's oceans. This one appeared to be a female, and she was strikingly beautiful. While her entire body had previously been the same gray-brown hue as the rock of the seamount, now that she had abandoned her disguise, her natural colors were revealed: a deep blue-green on her dorsal surface, and a vibrant pink below. Her eight muscular tentacles were coiled beneath her, each lined with thousands of suction cups and tipped with spade-shaped grasping pads. Unlike her much smaller relatives, the soft mantle that made up the back half of her body was protected by a flexible, cone-shaped shell, which was a dark, glossy shade of red. Her glowing eyes were the thing that surprised him the most: they were a vibrant, piercing blue, almost exactly the same color as his Queen's eyes, but with horizontal dark pupils rather than being compound eyes like an insect's.
The octopus's eyes were wide in alarm, and she hastily ducked her head. "Y-Your Grace!" she stammered, her tentacles fanning out as she dipped forward into a bow, the traditional Kaiju display of submission and loyalty. Her size was much more impressive when she was stretched out like that, as each of her tentacles was at least as long as the King was tall. Her attitude, however, made it clear that she had no interest in fighting. "I… I apologize, I wasn't expecting you." The pink coloration of her underside began spreading across the rest of her body, in her species' version of an embarrassed blush.
The King snorted softly in amusement, relaxing and ceasing his display. He could tell that she wasn't showing any hostility or aggression, so he felt no need to threaten her. "Calm yourself," he replied, drifting forward with a flick of his tail and touching down on top of the seamount. The octopus flowed backwards to give him space and settled onto a lower slope a short distance below him, her eyes still wide in amazement.
"What is your name?" he inquired. He didn't remember seeing this octopus before, but he could tell that she clearly knew him. "Have we met before?"
The octopus's tentacles coiled and shifted about nervously, as bands of pink continued to ripple across her body. "My name is Na Kika, Your Grace," she replied, a little shakily. "And… y-yes, we crossed paths once before, many years ago. You saved my life during the Clearance; I was one of the survivors who were fleeing from the Razor Winds, when you stopped them."
"I see." The King's eyes widened slightly, and he nodded as the memories of that battle welled up in his mind. After the third great Kaiju War had ended, with the Golden One imprisoned in their icy tomb and the Jinshin-Mushi swarms all but wiped out, there had still been other conflicts among the world's Kaiju, as many species clashed for dominance and for territory. The worst of those conflicts had been caused by a race of amphibious predators known as sky-sharks (or "Razor Winds", as they referred to themselves), and had become known to all the Kaiju who inhabited this great ocean as "the Clearance". The strongest of the sky-sharks, a power-hungry male named Otodus, had rallied his entire species into an army and launched a bloody campaign of conquest, driving out or killing many other Kaiju who refused to submit to his rule.
As soon as the King and Queen had heard about the atrocities committed by this would-be ruler, they had raced across the world to intercept the sky-sharks' army before they could do any more damage. The King had brought a swift and decisive end to the conflict by brutally killing Otodus in single combat, which had broken the spirit of his followers and prompted them all to submit in short order. Many Kaiju had been present to witness that battle, so it wasn't too much of a surprise that this octopus had been there.
"I never had the chance to say this back then, actually," Na Kika murmured shyly, "but… thank you for that, Your Grace." Her tentacles flicked around, unconsciously playing with a few loose rocks. "I lost both of my parents in the Clearance, but you saved me, and the others who took me in. And last year, when the Golden One roused me from hibernation and was controlling my mind, you freed me from them. I owe you my life twice over… so if there's ever anything I can do for you, please don't hesitate to ask." The pink color spread across her entire body as she bowed to him again, and the King couldn't entirely suppress an amused grin as he was reminded of Mosura's bioluminescence doing the same thing.
"I appreciate that," he replied, keeping his amusement out of his voice. "For now, though, you're free to do as you like. Just do your best to avoid the humans; they can sometimes be hostile, and they've developed some weapons that can actually harm Kaiju, so it's best to leave them alone if you can."
"Of course." Na Kika nodded, her pink glow fading somewhat as her dorsal surface shifted back to blue-green. "I'll do that, Your Grace."
The King nodded in satisfaction. "All right, then. Do me a favor and pass that message along to any other Kaiju you run into; I don't want anyone causing trouble."
A moment later, he flinched, his eyes flashing blue as a bolt of pain lanced through his mind. What the hell?! Snarling, he whipped around to look behind him, thinking for a moment that he was being attacked, but there was nothing there. Then, a moment later, it clicked: what he'd felt was a burst of strong emotions, which had come through the mental link that he shared with his Queen.
Mosura! What just happened? he demanded mentally. He tried reaching out to her telepathically, but there was no response, and the only feelings that he got back were a churning mess of anger and fear. That, at least, told him what was going on: he usually only felt those sorts of emotions from his Queen when she was engaged in battle. Wherever she was, she was in trouble.
"Your Grace?! What's wrong?" Na Kika questioned, her eyes wide in alarm. She'd flinched back in response to his outburst, but now she just looked concerned.
"I'm fine," the King replied curtly, turning in a slow circle until he locked onto his Queen's position. She was somewhere to the southeast, many miles away, but not too far; if he hurried, he should be able to get there fairly quickly. "My apologies, but I must be going. Something urgent requires my attention, immediately." Before she could get another word out, he lowered himself into a crouch and kicked off the seamount with both feet, launching himself out into open water as his tail lashed back and forth behind him. A deep, rumbling growl echoed in his chest, and he accelerated to his top speed as he sped back out into the open ocean.
For some reason, his Queen was fighting someone. She wasn't the type to start a fight if she had other options, so the most likely conclusion was that for some reason, another Kaiju had attacked her. And if that was the case, then no force on Earth would save the attacker from his wrath.
New Zealand…
Scylla had been waiting by the nest for the better part of an hour, before she finally made her way down to the beach. It was at that point, while she was resting on the shoreline and considering taking a nap until the Queen got back, when she first sensed that something was wrong. Her silver eyes flicked open, and then narrowed as she pushed herself up to her full height and turned in a slow circle, taking in everything around her as she searched for the source of the disturbance.
At first, she didn't see anything, but as she was facing inland towards the mountains, she heard the distinctive sound of sloshing water coming from behind her. She turned just in time to see a huge swirl on the surface, a few hundred yards out from the beach, as what looked like a massive dorsal fin quietly submerged. The cloudy sky meant that the water was currently a dull gray rather than blue, which helped her to make out a flicker of deep blue bioluminescence beneath the surface.
A low, chittering hiss escaped from Scylla's beak, as her tentacles coiled and flicked about. "I saw that," she called out, tensing in preparation to defend herself. "Who's there?" Whoever that was, it wasn't the King; if he was here, he'd have surfaced and come ashore immediately. But it was far too big to be a whale or another smaller creature, so it must be another aquatic Kaiju.
Sure enough, a huge V-shaped wake formed in the water a moment later, cruising in towards the beach where Scylla stood watching. A bulge of displaced seawater rose up in front of her, and then burst asunder as the new arrival surfaced, sending waves crashing onto the beach and washing around her feet. Her eyes widened and she took a couple of steps back up the slope, as she recognized the intruder. She'd never seen this Kaiju before, but it was unmistakably one of the most dangerous species in this ocean: a sky-shark… or, as they called themselves, a Razor Wind.
Like the rest of his kind, this male had the powerful, muscular body of a giant shark (although his was longer and more snakelike than most), with huge, wing-shaped pectoral fins that could either be tucked back against his flanks or flared out on either side of his body. Those fin-wings actually allowed him to fly as well as swim, helped by another unusual adaptation: a huge, gelatinous, dark-blue sac, like the body of a jellyfish, was attached to his back, starting just behind his triangular dorsal fin and running all the way to midway down his tail. This sac could be inflated at will with lighter-than-air gases, significantly reducing his weight and allowing him to take to the air. Another jellyfish-like trait that sky-sharks possessed were the long, whiplike tentacles that grew in a row along each of his flanks, which were normally tucked away beneath his fin-wings. These were covered in venomous stings, which could deliver a toxin that caused excruciating pain and could also cause paralysis. The head shapes of sky-sharks varied widely, but this one's head also gave him an extra weapon: in addition to a mouthful of curved, razor-sharp teeth, his snout was elongated and reinforced with dense layers of cartilage. This turned it into a hardened bladelike structure with three sharp edges, which could be used to stab or slash at an enemy in battle.
"Well, now," the sky-shark drawled as he slithered towards Scylla through the shallow water. She backed up several paces as he reared up like a cobra, supporting himself with his fin-wings and his serpentine lower body. "Been a long time since I've seen a squid-spider around these parts. What's your name, darlin'?" His eyes were entirely black, just like those of smaller sharks, and his fang-filled mouth was set in an amused, predatory grin. He gave the distinct impression of someone who believed that he was about to have a great deal of fun at someone else's expense.
Scylla's eyes narrowed, and her beak clacked beneath her tentacles. She wasn't the shy type, but sky-sharks were dangerous predators and this one didn't seem friendly, so she felt uneasy being this close to him. "Scylla," she replied tersely, taking another slow step back. "And I won't be here long, so you've got nothing to worry about. I'll be on my way shortly." Sky-sharks were comfortable in the air and the water, but they didn't like being on land for long periods as it was much more difficult for them to move around, so he probably wouldn't follow her if she retreated inland. While her pride didn't like the idea of running, fighting him here would be difficult, especially since she didn't want to run the risk of putting Mosura's nearby nest in danger.
The sky-shark chuckled, tilting his head to one side as his dark eyes focused intently on Scylla. "Well, it's nice to meet ya," he intoned, his fang-filled grin widening a bit. "Name's Typhon." He glided a little closer, moving slowly but matching her pace. "So, what's brought you here? Haven't seen one of your kind in these parts since before the Cold Times."
Scylla did her best not to glance over her shoulder to where the Queen's nest was hidden on the mountainside. Any time now, Mosura, she thought inwardly, cursing the fact that she didn't have a mental link with her friend, the way the King and the human Singers did. Most Kaiju didn't have telepathic abilities, which made it harder to communicate like that. "Just… wandering around," she replied, her tentacles flicking about a little despite her best efforts to remain calm. "I assume you were awakened by the Golden One too?"
Typhon snorted, his near-permanent grin briefly replaced by a scowl. "Oh, yeah," he muttered. "Found a nice hibernation spot in an underground lake, and I was sleepin' like a baby when I heard that bastard's voices in my head." He shook his head and growled, before focusing back on Scylla as his previous amusement returned. "But that doesn't really matter now, right? They're dead, which means I can do what I want. So after I took a nap in the deep sea for a few months, I started lookin' for a new territory, and this area seems nice enough. Plenty of space, and a decent food supply… although there weren't any other Kaiju here until now." He moved a little closer, and his dark eyes gleamed as he looked Scylla up and down, before his gaze shifted up towards the mountain behind her. "So… when I first got here, it looked like you were checkin' something out. Find some food buried up there?"
Scylla's eyes widened, and she felt a flash of alarm. Damn it… he saw me tending to Mosura's nest! That was bad, because it meant that she couldn't just retreat; if Typhon found the nest, he would probably be happy to devour the Queen's egg, and there was no way she could let that happen. "No, nothing," she replied coolly, forcing herself to remain calm. "If you're hungry, go find an underwater volcano or something; there must be some in this part of the world."
Typhon snickered, nodding. "Well, you're not wrong about that," he replied, before a new intensity filtered into his eyes. "But, see… I'm not really in the mood to go somewhere else. I figure you might've found somethin' tasty up there, and you want to keep it for yourself. But I'm higher on the food chain than you are, so that's not gonna happen." Bioluminescent blue lines began to glow along his body and fins, acting as an intimidation display, and he flared out his fin-wings as he reared up to make himself look as large as possible. "Now get outta my way… unless you'd rather I turn you into my main course instead."
At that threat, any thoughts of backing down flew from Scylla's mind, replaced by a surge of anger. Her species didn't have any flashy bioluminescent displays, but she let out a low, chittering hiss and stretched up to her full height, her tentacles flaring out and her beak clacking threateningly as she raised her first two legs into the air. "I don't think so," she snapped. "I'm warning you now: back off, or you'll regret it."
Sneering, Typhon flapped his fin-wings and sent a powerful gust of wind and seaspray blowing past Scylla. "Nice try, darlin'," he snarled. "But you're not gonna scare m–"
Scylla didn't wait for him to make the first move. Letting out a trilling screech and deliberately making it as loud as she could in the hopes that the Queen would hear her, she crouched and launched herself at Typhon, leaping off the ground like a colossal jumping spider. His eyes widened, not having expected so much aggression from a Kaiju that his kind typically regarded as prey, and his surprise gave her a crucial second as she slammed into him with her full weight, knocking him backwards and sending them both crashing into the water.
Despite his arrogance, Typhon clearly knew how to handle himself in a fight. He thrashed and spun his body, using his greater size to throw Scylla into a roll, and they tumbled through the shallows together, slashing and biting at each other. Since sky-sharks' only "limbs" were their fin-wings, that gave Scylla an advantage, and she made full use of it. Doing her best to pin him down, she wrapped all six of her legs around him and began stabbing repeatedly into his flanks and back with her pointed claws, attempting to puncture his tough hide. Typhon counterattacked, his glowing blue tentacles lashing out and winding around her limbs as he tried to use his venom, but while most Kaiju would have been affected by the stinging tendrils, Scylla's armored exoskeleton meant that all she felt was an unpleasant tingling sensation. However, the tentacles were preventing her from pulling away, forcing her to keep the fight at close quarters.
"Got you now, you little bitch!" Typhon roared. His eyes rolled back as he ducked his head and lunged, trying to bite her or to gore her with his sharpened snout. Scylla twisted to one side, narrowly evading the stabbing lunge, but his snapping jaws did manage to clamp onto one of her legs. His teeth succeeded where the tentacles had failed, crunching through her armor and sending a bolt of pain up that limb, but Scylla refused to quit. Heaving with all her might, she burst back above the surface, bringing him up with her, and reared back for a second before unleashing her species' secret defense mechanism: her beak gaped open as her tentacles flared wide, and a concentrated white jet of liquid nitrogen poured out of her mouth, striking the gills on one side of his neck and freezing solid on contact.
When he felt the burning sensation of ice coating his sensitive gills, Typhon let out a hissing bellow of agony and released his grip on Scylla's leg, lurching back and dunking his head into the water to try and wash off the ice. Scylla took advantage of the distraction and lunged in again, this time grabbing him with her tentacles and wrapping them around his head, clamping down as tightly as she could. She needed to restrain his jaws and snout to neutralize most of his natural weapons, or she would be in serious trouble.
Locked together in a churning mass of blue-gray hide and reddish-brown chitin, the two Kaiju rolled and thrashed through the shallows, churning up the water into a froth and sending massive waves crashing onto the shoreline. Typhon was larger and had more muscle power, but Scylla's armor gave her better defense, and she had more limbs to work with. She did her best to keep him restrained, stabbing repeatedly with her claws while also trying to keep him pinned against the seafloor. His tail lashed furiously back and forth, trying to propel them out into deeper water where he could wrestle free of her grip, and a series of muffled snarls and curses escaped his mouth as she fought to keep it shut.
After a couple of minutes, Typhon threw his body into such a powerful thrashing motion that Scylla briefly lost her grip with several of her legs. Before she could restrain him again, he flared out his fin-wings and drove them down in a power-stroke that lifted them both out of the water, trying to take to the air where he would have the advantage. Thinking quickly, Scylla reached up and wrapped one of her legs around each of his wings, forcefully yanking them back in against his sides. With his momentum cut off, Typhon could only let out a muffled screech of frustration as he twisted in the air, and then they both slammed back down into the sea.
As the impact left her head spinning, however, Scylla saw a flash of blue light out of her left eye, and then that side of her head lit up with a blinding explosion of agony as something thin, soft and flexible smacked across it. Even as she shrieked in pain, she realized what had happened: Typhon had finally managed to reach her head – the only unarmored part of her body – with one of his venomous tentacles, and had landed a strike across her face. The burning sensation was immediate and overpowering, sending her tentacles into thrashing spasms. Instinctively, she recoiled in shock, scraping the deadly tendril off of her face with one of her claws before any more of his toxin could work its way into her system.
Unfortunately, flinching back meant that Scylla had to release her death-grip on Typhon's head, and he didn't waste any time. Before she could counterattack or retreat, he ducked his head and seized another of her legs in his jaws, biting through her armor again and sparking another cry of pain from her. Heaving with all his strength, he swung her around in a full circle and then finally let go, launching her through the shallows and up onto the beach.
Damn it…! Scylla rolled to a halt in a mess of flailing limbs and churning foam, and managed to roll over, pressing her face into the damp sand and rubbing it back and forth in an attempt to relieve some of the pain. Two of her legs were now adorned by twin semicircles of puncture wounds from Typhon's teeth, with trickles of yellow blood leaking from some of them. So far, she wasn't badly wounded, but it was becoming apparent that she didn't have the upper hand here. If this continued, she probably wasn't going to win.
Shaking her head and hissing, she looked up just as Typhon surfaced. He'd sustained quite a few minor stab wounds and gouges from her claws, but his hide had protected him enough that none of them were serious. His fin-wings flared out again, tentacles lashing like whips, and he sneered as she stumbled back a few steps. "Nice try, darlin'," he growled. "You're quite a fighter, but you're not strong enough to beat me. So I'm gonna say it one last time. Surrender, and get outta my way… or I'm gonna have to kill ya."
Scylla's tentacles were still twitching and coiling in pain, and she swayed a little unsteadily on her feet due to her two injured legs, but her anger burned as hotly as ever. She might not be able to win this fight, but she wasn't going to give up. "Go to hell," she spat, letting out a trilling cry of defiance as she reared back and slashed her two front claws through the air.
Typhon's lip curled into a scowl. "Fine," he snapped. "Have it your way." He reared back again, jaws gaping open, and then surged forward with a powerful flap of his wings. Scylla grimaced, fighting against the pain in her face as she braced herself to meet him…
"No!"
And then the dull gray sky above them suddenly lit up as bright as day, and a pulse of brilliant golden energy washed over Scylla and smashed into Typhon, instantly cutting off his forward momentum and knocking him backwards into the water. He burst back up a moment later, shaking his head and roaring, but before he could recover his bearings, the Queen bulleted down from overhead like a bird of prey, her wings blazing a fiery red. A piercing screech escaped her mouth as her four clawed front limbs reached forward, a moment before she slammed into Typhon with enough force to drive him into the seafloor.
Taken completely off-guard and dazzled by the energy pulse, Typhon roared and swung his head in an arc, trying to slash or impale the Queen with his bladed snout, but she flared out her wings and jumped back into the air just in time. As he swung and missed again, she countered with a vicious strike from both of her longer forelimbs, snapping his head to the side and knocking him back towards the beach. She landed back on top of him as he crashed down on his side, pinning him to the ground and trapping one of his fin-wings beneath his body. Grappling the other wing with one of her longer forelimbs, she wrapped the other one around his neck in a chokehold, before raising one of her shorter forelimbs and stabbing the tip of that claw into the top of his head.
On impact, a flash of blue energy radiated from the Queen's claw, spreading across the sky-shark's head like glowing blue veins. Typhon convulsed and howled in pain, his black eyes also flickering with blue light. He desperately tried to throw the Queen off, but she bore down with all her might, letting out another trilling screech as her wings blazed scarlet, her blue eyes glaring directly into his black ones.
"You will not harm her," the Queen hissed, her normally-gentle voice now laden with fury, every word carrying the power and authority of an Alpha command. "Now submit, or suffer the consequences!" Normally she was kind and gentle by Kaiju standards - the perfect counterpart to her King's stoic, harsher nature - but in this moment, she was just as terrifying as her partner could be. Even Scylla, watching from the beach, shrank back from the force of her best friend's blazing crimson aura and the surge of telepathic power that accompanied it. In all the years that she'd known Mosura, she'd hardly ever seen her this angry.
Typhon's eyes were wide in a mixture of shock, anger, and pain, but he finally slumped to the ground and groaned weakly, ceasing his attempts to break free. "All right," he rasped, sounding as if every word was an effort. "I… I submit."
"Good." The Queen's anger lessened slightly, and she looked up to Scylla as if checking that she was okay. Relaxing a little more when Scylla gave her a small nod to confirm that she wasn't badly hurt, she glared down at Typhon, keeping her claw in place on his head as she maintained her psychic hold on him. "You will not trouble us again," she ordered coldly. "I will not kill you, but for your sake, do not do anything that would make me change my mind." Her wings flared out as she released her grip on his head, and she leapt from his back to the beach. She spun in midair so she landed facing towards him, touching down protectively in front of Scylla and fanning her wings out again. "Now leave this place!" The last three words came out as another threatening screech, and her voice deepened in another Alpha command, accompanied by another surge of telepathic energy that sent a tingling sensation through Scylla's mind.
All of Typhon's arrogance and bravado had deserted him, and he shrank back in fear, bowing his head in the face of the Queen's wrath. He shot one brief, hate-filled glare in Scylla's direction, and then swung around and plunged back into the sea, his tail lashing wildly from side to side as he propelled himself away from the shore and out into deeper water. His dorsal fin submerged in a rush of churning water as his flickering bioluminescence faded from view, and he was gone.
The Queen continued to glare after him for a full minute, practically trembling with rage, before her harsh red glow finally faded back to her normal colors and she visibly relaxed. Folding her wings across her back, she turned to face Scylla, her anger replaced by a concerned frown as she looked her over. "Are you all right?" she questioned, her eyes bright with alarm. "I'm sorry, I came as soon as I heard you!"
Scylla was too stunned to speak for a long moment, but when the question sank in, she shook her head to clear her mind. "I… yes, I'll be fine," she replied, limping to the water's edge to inspect her reflection in the shallows. Typhon's tentacle had left a line of welt marks that looked like a burn across her head, and her left eye was almost swollen shut. Fortunately, her exoskeleton had shielded her from the rest of the venomous tendrils, but her face was still throbbing with pain.
"You're hurt!" the Queen exclaimed as she skittered over to Scylla's side, leaning down to inspect her wounds. "Here, let me help." She stretched out one of her wings, which began to glow with a soft golden light. Waving it gently back and forth over Scylla's head, she sent a small cloud of glowing scales raining down onto her friend's face, which dissolved on contact and were absorbed into her skin like raindrops into dry soil. Immediately, Scylla felt the pain of Typhon's venom begin to fade, and she sighed in relief as the scales' healing properties began to take effect.
Even as the Queen helped her back up the beach so she could rest on land, however, Scylla couldn't help but feel astonished by the ferocity with which her friend had just charged into battle against Typhon. The Queen was never afraid to fight when the situation called for it, but in Scylla's experience, she would usually make a threat display and try to warn another Kaiju off before resorting to violence. And it was rare for her to use a psychic attack so quickly and ruthlessly, as she never enjoyed inflicting pain on other creatures' minds and usually only did so when she had to. So why had she been so aggressive in her defense of Scylla this time? Or was it because Typhon had also been a danger to her hidden nest?
As Scylla settled down on the beach, her two injured legs held out so the Queen could tend to them and the other four folded and tucked under her body, she couldn't stop wondering what was going on.
Infant Island…
A few hours had passed since the video conference, and Mark, Madison and Ling had decided to get some fresh air, as the situation finally seemed to have calmed down. Although Godzilla had passed by Fiji to check on Rodan, he'd veered off without going too close, and had headed back southwest into the Coral Sea, where they'd been surprised to detect the sudden reappearance of Titanus Na Kika. The cephalopod Titan had been off Monarch's radar for almost a year, so everyone had been pleased to find her again, especially since it looked like she was currently living far out in the ocean, many miles from any human populations. She had bowed to Godzilla almost immediately, in another display of submission just like the ones that they'd seen from the other Titans in the past, suggesting that she wasn't naturally hostile. However, just a couple of minutes later, Godzilla had suddenly high-tailed it out of there… and for good reason, as an urgent alert quickly came in from New Zealand. Apparently, Titanus Typhon had also resurfaced for the first time in months, and had promptly gotten into a territorial fight with Scylla and Mothra.
Fortunately, the pair had been more than a match for the sharklike Titan, and he'd been driven off back into the deep ocean long before Godzilla could arrive on the scene. Mark had been happy about that, as the fight could've gotten even worse if the Titan King had shown up while it was still going on. While he no longer felt the same hate for Godzilla that he'd felt over the five years after Andrew's death, he was still well aware of how much collateral damage could be caused by any battle between these creatures.
With the current situation resolved, Mark had felt the need to get some exercise and work off some of the tension that he'd been feeling over the past couple of hours, and both Madison and Ling had clearly felt the same way. To that end, the three of them were now hiking up a trail near the base camp that had been carved through the jungle by the Houtua hunters, making their way further uphill and inland, deeper into the island's interior. The warm, tropical air hung heavily around them, and the sky overhead was beginning to grow darker as sunset approached, but they all had flashlights in case it got dark before they could get back to camp, and there weren't many dangerous animals on this island to worry about, so Mark wasn't as concerned as he would have been otherwise.
After about an hour of hiking, the trio reached the crest of the ridgeline behind the ancient city. Fortunately, they found an ideal spot to stop and rest, as a large tree had fallen right next to the trail, creating a huge natural bench where they could all sit and drink from the large water bottles that they'd brought along. As both Mark and Ling knew from plenty of personal experience, hiking in the tropics meant that people typically sweated profusely, so keeping up their water intake was essential to avoid getting dehydrated.
Sitting on the log and leaning back on his hands, Mark sighed wearily as he gazed up at the pink-tinged evening sky. "It really is beautiful here," he murmured, almost to himself. The wilderness of this island reminded him of his remote cabin in Wyoming, where he'd been living until the events of last year. He still owned that place, but he hadn't been back there since then; his initial plan after the Battle of Boston had been to take Madison back there so they could stay out of harm's way until the world could finish rebuilding, but that idea had been sidetracked by their decision to come here instead.
"Definitely," Ling agreed quietly, a faint smile on her face as she gazed out over the valley. "My mother and aunt told Ilene and I all about this place when we were younger, but verbal descriptions didn't do it justice."
Madison nodded thoughtfully, taking a long drink from her water bottle. She was about to reply, when she inhaled sharply and grabbed Mark's arm. "Dad, look!" she exclaimed, keeping her voice down as she pointed along the trail that they'd been following, which now led down the other side of the ridge and deeper into the jungle.
Mark's eyes widened and he whipped around, tensing in case she'd seen something dangerous, but he relaxed when he saw what she was pointing at. A short distance down the trail, perched at head height on the trunk of a tree, was a giant moth. It wasn't Titan-sized, of course, but it was easily the biggest "normal" insect he'd ever seen, about the size of a pigeon. In addition, it was glowing softly, with a rosy-pink hue that illuminated the gathering dusk. He'd seen a few of these oversized bugs in their time on the island: Ling had dubbed them "giant fairy moths", and they seemed to be a unique species endemic to Infant Island. Despite their size, they were completely harmless, and the Houtua tribe even had a habit of leaving bowls of nectar or fruit-juice out for them to feed on, so their bioluminescence would help to illuminate the tribe's village after dark.
"I've never seen one of them this close before," Madison breathed, grinning widely. She hopped to her feet and slowly began moving down the trail towards the moth, which didn't move at first. When she was just a couple of feet away, however, its wings flicked out and it took off into the air, fluttering away for a short distance before landing on another tree. Madison followed, fishing a handheld camera out of her backpack so she could try and get some pictures of it.
"Maddie, don't go too far ahead by yourself!" Mark called out. Even though Infant Island didn't have many dangers to worry about, he didn't want to take any chances, especially not with Madison's safety.
"I'll be fine, Dad," Madison called back over her shoulder. "Don't worry, I won't go too far." With that, she continued hiking down the trail, focused intently on the glowing moth.
Once she was out of sight, Ling sat up a little straighter and took a final sip of her water before clambering off the log and standing up. "So, I've been meaning to ask you something, Mark," she spoke up as she stretched her arms and clipped her bottle back onto her belt. "Do you really intend to stay with Monarch? I don't mean to pry, but… I know you don't entirely agree with what we're trying to do."
Mark bristled for a second, but his irritation faded when he saw the open, earnest look on her face. He rubbed his eyes and brushed a sleeve across his forehead to wipe away some sweat, before securing his own water bottle and starting down the trail after Madison. "I didn't at first, no," he admitted. "After what happened to my son six years ago, I couldn't bring myself to see the Titans as anything but evil monsters. So when I found out that Monarch's higher-ups wanted to keep them alive, I couldn't accept that." He grimaced. "That, plus the fact that I dealt with Andrew's death by drinking, was more than enough for me to walk away."
"I understand." Ling nodded as she fell into step alongside him, her expression filled with sympathy. "I'm sorry."
"Thanks." Mark sighed. "But now…" Shaking his head, he shrugged. "After everything that happened last year, I know there's more to the Titans than that. They're dangerous, of course, but I know they're not all just monsters." While he wasn't sure if he would ever be able to think of Godzilla fondly, he could freely admit that the Titan King wasn't even close to being what you might call "evil". Monster Zero had been genuinely evil, and Godzilla had stopped them from destroying the entire world. That had earned the big lizard at least some credit, in his eyes.
"And," he continued, "I made a promise to Serizawa, before he… before he died." He lowered his gaze to the ground, feeling a surge of pain as he remembered the older man's sacrifice. "I promised that I'd help take care of things for him, and I'm going to do my best to honor that. For the moment, it seems like helping you here is the best way I can do that." He sighed and rubbed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Plus… with the way things are out there, staying this far off the grid is probably the safest thing for Maddie right now."
Ling nodded soberly, already knowing what he meant. When Ilene had left to take up her new duties as Director Guillerman's second-in-command, she'd advised Mark to stay on Infant Island for the time being… not just because of the contributions he could make to Monarch's study there, but because it might be the safest place for him and Madison. Even though a year had passed since Ghidorah's rampage, Mark's deceased ex-wife Emma was still a major topic of contention all over the world, thanks to the speech that she'd broadcasted to the Argo – and to all of Monarch's other outposts – before Rodan had awakened on Isla de Mara. Since Emma had spread her message so widely, it had only been a matter of time before clips made it onto civilian social media, and even after her death in Boston, she'd quickly become known worldwide as the public face of the Mass Awakening. As painful as it was, he couldn't blame people for hating her, considering how much damage and loss of life had been caused by the rise of the Titans.
The real problem was that Madison had been on camera with Emma during that broadcast, which meant there was always a chance that some lunatic with an axe to grind might target her if they got an opportunity. With that in mind, this remote outpost might actually be the safest place for her right now, at least until things calmed down. So, while Mark certainly wasn't planning to settle down long-term on Infant Island, he was thankful for the sanctuary that it provided.
Sometimes, it was almost like the Chen sisters could read Mark's mind, because Ling's next response was exactly in line with what he'd been dwelling on. "And once the world calms down, and peace is fully restored?" she inquired, raising an eyebrow curiously. "What will you do then?"
Mark frowned and walked a little more slowly. "Honestly, I'm not sure," he admitted. "If it was just me, I'd definitely stick with Monarch and keep doing whatever I could to help. But it's not just me; I also have Maddie to worry about." He waved one hand up the trail, towards where his daughter had disappeared into the forest. "She's still just a kid, and she's had to grow up way too fast. She shouldn't have to deal with any of this. So…" He sighed. "Once we're done with our work here, I'm thinking about taking a desk job for a while instead, so I can try to give her a normal life. Try to find a school that she can go to where she won't have to deal with Emma's baggage, so she can make friends and just… be a kid, at least for a few more years."
When he looked back over at Ling, the expression on her face wasn't what he had been expecting; she was looking at him with a combination of skepticism and amusement. "What?" he questioned, his frown deepening.
"I'm sorry, I just…" Ling shook her head, and a faint smile flickered across her lips. "You're a good man, Mark. And I know you just want to do what's best for Madison. But… have you given any consideration to what she wants? Do you think she even wants a 'normal life'?"
Mark's eyes widened, and he had to suppress a scowl as he felt a brief surge of anger. "She's just a kid, Ling!"
"And this life is all she's ever known," Ling countered, her voice still calm and even. "I know how hard the last six years have been for you. But you have to remember: Madison was seven when San Francisco happened. She may only be thirteen now, but most of the life that she can remember is from after that. She's grown up in this world, and she's spent almost all of that time with you and Emma, as a part of Monarch. She hasn't been an ordinary civilian since she was in preschool. For her, all of this is 'normal'."
As they rounded a bend in the trail and the downward slope started to level off a bit, Ling sighed and came to a stop for a moment, wiping some sweat from her face with her shirt. "I'm not trying to tell you what to do," she promised as she turned to face Mark, her expression becoming more serious. "But I think you know, deep down, that if you take Madison away from all of this – Monarch, studying the Titans, the life that she's been living for as long as she can remember – and try to force her to live a 'normal life' instead… she won't be happy living like that. And she definitely won't thank you for it."
Mark's anger faded somewhat, and he stared off into the trees for a long moment as he considered that. Reluctantly, he had to admit that Ling did have a point: he knew full-well that given the choice, Madison probably wouldn't want to be anywhere other than where she was right now. And she'd be furious if he tried to cut her off from all of this completely, even if he was only doing it to keep her safe. But he also knew that the life of a Monarch field operative was a hazardous one, and he had no business letting his thirteen-year-old daughter put herself in danger.
And, at that exact moment, as if his worries about Maddie had reached out into the world and come to life, they heard a deep, echoing honk echoing from further down the trail, in the direction where she had gone. It was followed a moment later by a high-pitched scream, in a voice that he immediately recognized.
Mark's head snapped around, and he paled in fear. "Madison!" he yelled, instantly bursting into a run as he began racing madly down the trail towards his daughter's voice, with Ling half a step behind him.
After a few minutes of tracking the giant fairy moth along the trail, Madison had been surprised to find that part of the jungle on this side of the ridge eventually opened out into a large, grassy meadow. The moth had flown out into the open, fluttering back and forth across the open space, its pink bioluminescence lighting up the gathering dusk. She followed, wanting to get a better view. Of all the strange animals she'd seen since coming to this island, the fairy moths were her favorite (partly because they reminded her of Mothra), and she'd never gotten this close to one of them before.
Keeping an eye open to make sure there weren't any large animals in the field, Madison moved slowly out towards the moth, which had landed on a small outcropping of volcanic rock. She moved slowly and quietly in a semicircle around the rock to get the best view, doing her best not to frighten it away, before sinking down onto one knee to brace herself as she snapped a few pictures of it with her camera. If she'd had a net or something like that, she might have been tempted to try catching it so they could study it back at the outpost, but under the current circumstances she was content to simply observe it.
As she was taking pictures, however, Madison suddenly felt a gust of wind that ruffled her hair. This was followed, a moment later, by a deep thump that she felt through the ground underfoot. The fairy moth immediately opened its wings and took off again; when she lowered her camera and looked up, she saw that it was flying straight towards the trees, back where she'd come from. Its pink bioluminescence had been drowned out by a sickly green light, which was now illuminating most of the meadow.
Oh, no. Recognizing this new glow, Madison's eyes widened and she felt a chill run up her spine. She slowly turned towards the source of the green light… and looked up, and up, at the dark, twenty-foot-tall form of a Ropen pterosaur that had landed just a few yards behind her, illuminated by the glowing green crest on its head. It gazed down at her with gleaming dark eyes, cocked its head to one side, and let out a deep-toned, rasping honk that echoed across the meadow.
To her credit, Madison didn't let her sudden burst of terror slow her down. She screamed at the top of her lungs, in an attempt to confuse the creature and to alert her dad and Ling, and immediately dove to one side, just as the Ropen lunged down at her like a heron striking at a mouse. Its beak, which was longer than she was tall, stabbed into the dirt right where she'd been standing, but she was already up and running, sprinting back uphill towards the forest. Wrenching its beak free of the soil, the Ropen hissed and began stalking after her, its massive stride covering ground much more quickly than she could.
Even as Madison ran, she was cursing herself for venturing out into the open. The Ropens never came near the abandoned city, presumably due to fear of the Titans who'd taken up residence in that area, but she was far enough away now that it was dangerous to venture into any open areas while it was dark or overcast. She'd been so captivated by the fairy moth that she'd forgotten all about that, but now the memories of witnessing plenty of human-sized animals being snatched up and devoured by the giant pterosaurs replayed through her mind in horrifying detail. She heard the creature's heavy, dragging footsteps closing in, and again she threw herself sideways just in time to avoid another snap of the massive beak.
"Dad!" she screamed as she ran, hoping desperately that he was close enough to hear her. "Ling!" She was sprinting with all the energy she had, zigzagging back and forth to try and throw off the Ropen's aim, but she knew that wasn't going to be enough. It was much bigger and faster than she was, and it only had to get lucky once.
And then, when she was just a few yards from the trees, the worst possible thing happened: one of her feet hit a soft patch in the dirt and she tripped, crashing to the ground and feeling a wrenching pain in her right ankle. She rolled with the impact, but the Ropen was already towering over her, making escape impossible. Its beak opened, and it reached down to snatch her up as she opened her mouth to scream…
"No!"
And then, halfway to grabbing her, the Ropen froze. A flash of blue light flickered in its eyes, and it jerked to a halt, its beak gaping open as it let out a strangled hiss. Madison froze too, not sure what had just happened… but then she heard someone panting, and her brain snapped out of the horrified trance. She rolled over and looked up, to see her dad standing at the edge of the trees, having just skidded to a halt as he emerged into the open. His eyes were wide in shock and horror, but he wasn't coming any closer to her. And that was because standing a few feet in front of him, with her hands extended towards Madison and the Ropen, was Ling. Her eyes were blazing blue, the brightest that Madison had ever seen them, and there was an almost animalistic snarl on her face, as if she was straining to lift an immense weight.
For a long moment, Madison was so stunned that she had no idea what to say. She'd known that the Chen sisters had some kind of psychic powers, but this was beyond anything that she could've expected. Somehow, Ling was holding the giant predator frozen in place, with nothing but her mind.
"Madison," Ling intoned, "come here now." Her voice was as strained as her expression, and it was clear that whatever she was doing, it was taking a toll on her. That snapped Madison out of her confusion, and she scrambled to her feet. The Ropen hissed, straining against its invisible restraints, but it didn't move.
Mark had been staring at Ling in disbelief, but when Madison got up and began limping towards him, he too snapped back into clarity. He rushed forward, pulling her close and supporting her, before backing up to where Ling stood facing the immobilized Ropen. Ling nodded fractionally as they reached her, and the blue glow in her eyes flashed even brighter for a second. This seemed to release whatever she was doing to the Ropen, but instead of attacking, it stumbled back, shaking its head. Letting out another deep honk, it turned away, flared out its forty-foot wingspan, and leapt into the air, flapping several times to gain altitude as it soared off into the darkening sky.
For a long moment, the trio of humans remained frozen, before Mark shook his head and crouched down so his face was on the same level as Madison's. "Are you okay?!" he demanded, checking her right leg.
Madison winced as she twitched that foot back and forth, but fortunately the pain wasn't too much. "Yeah… I think so," she breathed, still panting heavily as the adrenaline rush started to wear off.
"Oh, thank god…" Mark pulled her into a hug, and she could feel that they were both trembling. All the terrifying memories from the year before came welling back up, and she did her best to force them back down, but tears were still streaming down her cheeks as she hugged him back.
After a minute, as Madison managed to regain her composure, she realized that her dad was looking over her shoulder, and she turned to follow his gaze. He was staring at Ling, with a look of confusion and disbelief on his face. Any hopes she might have had that he hadn't seen what the older woman had done were dashed by his next question, as he stood back up and kept one arm protectively around Madison's shoulders.
"Ling… what the hell was that?"
Ling had been gazing off in the direction where the Ropen had disappeared, but at Mark's question, she slowly lowered her gaze from the sky and turned back to face him. Sighing, she lowered her gaze for a long moment, and then looked back up to meet his questioning gaze. "There's something I should probably tell you," she replied calmly, as her dark brown eyes flashed blue again for a moment. "About my family's history."
New Zealand…
Fortunately, after a few minutes, the anger and fear that the King had felt filtering through his connection with the Queen had faded away, and her emotions settled down. His worry kept him moving, however, and he didn't slow down; instead, he went deep again, finding an entrance to an underwater tunnel and diving in without hesitation, using the tunnels beneath the ocean floor to give him more speed.
It took less than an hour for him to reach his destination, homing in on the Queen's mind like a magnet drawn to metal. When he surfaced, he was relieved to see that there wasn't any battle going on: the only Kaiju in view were Scylla and the Queen, the former sitting on the beach and the latter tending to her. One of Scylla's legs was extended out along the ground, and the Queen appeared to be wrapping a layer of her silk around part of it. In addition, there was now a fading red line across the squid-spider's face, which looked like a slowly-healing burn.
The King let out a deep, rumbling call as he surfaced and waded in through the shallows. "What happened?" he demanded immediately. "Are you both all right?"
The Queen's eyes brightened a little more when she saw him, and she smiled. "Yes, we're fine, Goji," she assured him, leaning down and spraying a final burst of silk onto Scylla's leg. "A very unpleasant sky-shark attacked Scylla and threatened my new nest, but she held him off until I could arrive, and then I drove him away." She drew back, tapped Scylla's silk-wrapped leg lightly with one claw, and nodded in satisfaction. "There you go! My scales should help your exoskeleton to mend more quickly, but try not to put too much weight on either of those legs until they finish healing."
"Of course." Scylla smiled as she unfolded the rest of her legs from where they'd been tucked under her body, which allowed the King to see that one of her other limbs also had a silken bandage wrapped around it. "Thank you, Mosura."
The King was relieved to see that his Queen wasn't hurt, but as he listened to her voice and watched her body language, he could tell that something was wrong. Her outward calm didn't match the churning emotions underneath; the lingering fear and anger from earlier had also been joined by guilt, and he could tell that she was making a deliberate effort to keep all of those emotions firmly buried. His frown deepened, but he decided not to voice his concern for the moment. Whatever was bothering her, she was clearly very upset about something, and he didn't want to make it worse by confronting her about it now.
"Well, I'm glad you're both safe," he replied as he emerged onto land, before a growl rumbled in his chest and his eyes briefly flashed blue with anger as he glanced out at the ocean. "And that sky-shark is lucky I wasn't here."
"Oh, I don't think he'll be bothering us again anytime soon," Scylla remarked dryly as she tested both of her bandaged legs. Curiously, he noticed that she shot a brief, sidelong glance at the Queen as she said that, before shaking her head. "Well, shall we be on our way? I don't think he figured out that there was a nest here, and I doubt that he'd risk coming back, so hopefully it should be safe."
The Queen glanced anxiously over her shoulder, checking the mountainside behind them. When the King followed her gaze and narrowed his eyes, reaching out with his senses, he could feel the faint energy of a dormant life-signature inside the mountain, which he immediately recognized as one of her eggs. The worry that he could feel in her mind was much more prevalent than he'd expected, given that the nest was still hidden and undisturbed.
"Yes… I think you're right," she agreed after a few seconds of thought, nodding reluctantly. "It should be fine." She fluttered her wings, and forced a smile onto her face as she looked from the King to Scylla and back again. "Let's head back, then! I don't know about you two, but I could certainly use a nap after all this excitement." With that, her wings flared out and she took off, leaving a trail of blue-gold bioluminescence behind her as she began flying off to the north, heading back towards her island.
Nodding in agreement, the King turned and began wading back into the sea, hearing splashing from behind him as Scylla followed suit. As they got far enough out that they could submerge, however, he was surprised when she suddenly accelerated up alongside him, turning slightly in the water so she could face him as they swam along the surface. "My King?" she spoke up in a low voice, her tentacles curling in a frown. "I'm not sure if it's my place to tell you about this, but… I'm worried about the Queen."
The King's eyes widened a little, and his frown deepened. "Why is that?" he questioned, continuing to swim out into deeper water but moving slowly enough that his Queen had a significant head start on the two of them.
"Well, it's just…" Scylla sighed. "I know you've seen most of it too: she's been acting strangely ever since she transformed, always going off by herself and making so many eggs so quickly, but she's insisted that she's okay, so I convinced myself that everything was fine. But when that sky-shark attacked me today, and she showed up…" She shivered, and he could tell that it wasn't just a result of the cold water. "I've hardly ever seen her like that. She was furious, as if just the presence of a predator anywhere near her nest drove her into a blind rage." She described how viciously the Queen had dealt with the attacker, wincing as she relayed the details, and the King's eyes widened further as he listened.
"I don't know what's going on with her," Scylla finished, "but something's wrong. You and I both know that, even if she won't tell us what it is." She shook her head and gazed off into the distance, to where the faint glowing light of the Queen's bioluminescent aura was still visible on the northern horizon. "And she might be more likely to tell you than me."
"I'll talk to her," the King promised, his own concern having grown with everything that she'd told him about the fight. "Right now she's upset over what just happened, so let's give her some time to rest and relax. But I'll talk to her soon, and see if she'll open up about it."
Scylla nodded. "Thank you, dear King. And if there's anything I can do to help, I'd be happy to."
Even as the King submerged and began heading back towards the Queen's island, with Scylla trailing behind him, he kept turning the recent events over in his mind. There was no denying that over the last few months, ever since the Queen's most recent transformation, something seemed to be causing her behavior to become increasingly erratic. Something must be making her feel this way… but he had no idea what it could be.
In the Underworld…
Many miles beneath the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, far beyond the reach of modern humans, was one of the many enormous caverns which made up the vast global warren known as the Underworld. This particular cave was mostly full of warm, salty water, forming a small underground sea, which was connected to the much larger ocean far above by a few tunnels that wound up through the Earth's crust.
Along one shoreline of this underground sea, less than a mile from the underwater opening of a surface tunnel, a massive shape was curled up inside a sheltered rock alcove, fast asleep in a mound of scaly blue-and-purple coils. In recent months, however, the slumbering creature had begun to stir, sparked out of her hibernation trance by the faint echoes of a distant Alpha call that had filtered down through the nearby tunnel.
Now, finally, a deep rumble reverberated through the ground underfoot, accompanied by a low, rasping hiss. The mass of scale and muscle uncurled itself, and a draconic head rose up, a frill of luminous blue fins fanning out around her head as her glowing yellow eyes flicked open.
Yawning and taking a few deep breaths, Tiamat stretched herself out as she took stock of her surroundings. After she and Manda had parted ways before the Cold Times, she had made her way back to this side of the world; unlike her mate, she was loath to abandon the hunting grounds that they had been driven from by the lizard King and his little Queen. After finding the tunnel entrance far above, she had traveled down to this underground sea and had found this place, which had been ideal for her purposes as a perfect spot to hibernate. At the time, it had already been occupied by another Kaiju, but she had been able to overcome that foe.
Smirking to herself, Tiamat glanced over her shoulder to look deeper into her cave, and was satisfied when she saw that her trophy had survived the last few millennia without falling apart or wearing away. The skull of an adult male Great Ape, a rare survivor from the days of the second great Kaiju War, was testament to the savage battle that she had fought to lay claim to this place. Despite his advanced age, the Ape – Atlas, as he'd identified himself – had been far from weak; their fight had raged for hours, and it had taken every bit of Tiamat's strength and cunning to emerge victorious. In the end, she had only managed to win by blinding her opponent with her acidic venom, after which she'd finally been able to drag him out into deep water and drown him. The rest of the ancient Ape's body, probably just a mess of crumbling bones by now, had been left somewhere out on the seafloor, but she had torn off his head after killing him and brought it back here as a trophy to signify her victory.
Few Kaiju could boast that they had managed to defeat an Alpha in single combat, and Tiamat's triumph over that foe had only strengthened her resolve to one day exact her vengeance upon the other Alphas who had once dealt her such a humiliating defeat. Thinking about the King and Queen, and the thirteen lost hatchlings who had died at their claws, sent a rush of anger coursing through her veins, and her scales rattled as she let out a snarl. She wasn't sure what had finally sparked her to wake up from her torpor, but she wasn't willing to wait any longer. Once she'd gotten something to eat, it was time to return to the surface, track down her mate, and get some long-overdue payback.
Screeching out a challenge to her faraway enemies, Tiamat slithered out of the hibernation cave and crossed the beach, slipping into the dark waters of the underground sea and emptying her lungs with a forceful exhale as she shifted over to using her gills instead. She propelled herself away from the shore and headed for the distant glow of the surface tunnel's entrance, her mind already racing as a strategy began to come together.
"You two will pay dearly for what you did to us," she hissed, her eyes blazing yellow as she spotted the glowing tunnel entrance and put on an extra burst of speed. "I promise you that."
Tucking her limbs against her sides, Tiamat dove headfirst into the vortex without a moment's hesitation. Her long, serpentine body plunged into the tunnel with a flare of energy and was gone, propelled at incredible speeds up through the tunnel, towards the surface ocean high above.
Notes: And there we go!
So, a few notes:
– I decided to put in a couple references to some past MonsterVerse events with Gojira's opening scene. His dream/flashback is obviously his POV on the Castle Bravo hydrogen-bomb test from Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and his recalling a battle with a "worm-swarm" Titan is a reference to Shinomura from the Godzilla Aftershock graphic novel (which was at least partly retconned by LoM, so I decided to put my own spin on those events).
– I went with "Outpost 96" for Monarch's Infant Island outpost designation to keep with KOTM's pattern of numbering some of the Monarch outposts focused on Toho Kaiju/Titans after the years when they first appeared in films (like how Skull Island is Outpost 33, Castle Bravo is Outpost 54, Isla de Mara is Outpost 56, the Temple of the Moth is Outpost 61, etc.). In this case, "96" is a reference to the classic Toho film Rebirth of Mothra (the first in a trilogy of Mothra solo films), which came out in 1996.
– Director Guillerman, the guy who canonically became the new head of Monarch after Serizawa's death, is Lance Reddick's character from GvK. Since we don't know what his first name is in canon, I went with "Cedric" as a reference to one of Lance's other well-known roles (Cedric Daniels from The Wire).
– For the scene where the Monarch crew talk about Methuselah & Behemoth, my sidestory "The Heart of the Mountain" goes into much more detail on what they're currently up to, so I'd recommend checking that one out if you haven't already.
– On a cute note, the detail of Godzilla's senses having been permanently enhanced by his temporary fusion with Mothra in KOTM is actually canon! I took that bit directly from the Godzilla Dominion graphic novel.
– The idea of Mosura being able to make special "camouflage silk" is my attempt to explain how she was able to create a nearly-invisible cocoon suspended between the two Hollow-Earth Iwi pyramids in GxK, as well as the protective silk barrier-wall that she made for them.
– We get the introductions of a couple more canon MonsterVerse Kaiju/Titans, with Na Kika and Typhon! For Na Kika's design, I based it mainly off of her appearance in Godzilla Dominion, but I also kept in the detail from the KOTM novelization of her having a shell over part of her body instead of just being a giant octopus, because I liked that addition. Typhon, meanwhile, is another example (like my combining Manda with Leviathan, and my inclusion of Baphomet in "Heart of the Mountain") of me putting my own spin on one of the unseen Titans from KOTM that are canon, but haven't appeared on-screen or in any of the supplemental books. I know there's a rumor going around that he may be introduced as a starfish Titan in the upcoming Monsterverse Declassified graphic novel, but I decided to stick with the design that I came up with because I like it better.
So, for the design of Typhon's species, the "sky-sharks", I took inspiration from several real-life animals. Overall, he's basically a giant shark, but his winglike pectoral fins are based on those of a flying-fish, and his tentacles (and the inflatable sac on his back) are based on a man-o'-war jellyfish. In Typhon's case, I based his specific design on a goblin shark, the same type of creature that the Kaiju Knifehead was based on in Pacific Rim; that's where I came up with the idea of him having a sharp, bladed snout that he uses to gore enemies in battle. Other sky-sharks would look like various other types of sharks (great whites, tiger sharks, hammerheads, etc.), in the same way that members of Kong's species look like different types of great apes (gorillas, orangutans, chimps & bonobos). The sky-sharks' name for themselves, "Razor Winds", is a reference to a very cool MonsterVerse AU fic called Red Tide, by StanIsYourMan on AO3, which also features a species of shark Titans who go by that name (although their design is different in that story). The historical Kaiju conflict known as "the Clearance" that Na Kika, Goji and Scylla all reference in this chapter is also a reference to that fic.
Also, since we're talking about these two, I did mention a couple of other character themes in the opening note, so here they are! Na Kika's theme for this AU is "Endless Search" from the River Monsters soundtrack, and Typhon's theme is "Vanish" from the same soundtrack. And I also have a couple of voice-claims in mind for them too: in my head, Na Kika's voice for these fics would be Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell in Game of Thrones), and Typhon's would be Norman Reedus (Daryl Dixon in The Walking Dead). For the latter, that's why I wrote Typhon's dialogue with a bit of a Southern accent in mind. 'XD
– I wanted to give one of the Chen sisters a chance to show what the MonsterVerse Shobijin are really capable of (at least in my AU), which was how I came up with the idea of Ling saving Madison & Mark from a Ropen. Plus, that scene gave me a chance to delve into Mark's character a bit more, and to have him finally learn the truth about the Chens. Also, the "giant fairy moth" in that scene, another of the strange animals that are native to my version of Infant Island, is a nod to Fairy Mothra from the Japanese Rebirth of Mothra films.
– And we get the modern introduction of Tiamat! I'm really enjoying getting to write my take on her character, and we'll definitely be seeing more of her as this story continues. For her design, I stuck with the blue-&-purple look from Dominion, because it seems to be confirmed by Tiamat's section of Monsterverse Declassified that her pink coloration in GxK was a direct side effect of her absorbing a bunch of cosmic radiation from her new Arctic lair, just like how Godzilla's bioluminescence changed from blue to pink when he did the same thing.
– Lastly, just in case it wasn't clear enough, Atlas, the old lone Great Ape that Tiamat killed to take over his former lair in the Underworld, is my name for the Rival from Godzilla Dominion.
Next time, Gojira goes on a global patrol to check on some of the other recently-awakened Kaiju, and Mosura makes a surprising confession about her recent strange behavior. Stay tuned!