Godzilla 2000: New Era, PART 5 · 2:37am Dec 28th, 2020
The sake bottle across from Yuji Shinoda in the bar was looking very friendly right about now, amongst the dim and chatter of other restaurant goers. He'd come here after storming off from the Eiko-Ryu study warehouse on the promise to Commander Aso that he'd "think about it", but frankly he needed less time and more space. He felt that spacious warehouse was going to suffocate him. Old tremors traveled up and down Yuji’s arm as he quivered at old memories. The bartender glanced at him curiously, expectantly after trailing his line of sight. A tight grip on his wrist and hand on his shoulder help snap Yuji away from the thoughts. But it was only the first that was his own hand. The second was taken up by the man seating himself next to him.
“Two glasses, milk tea. For me and my company. Put mint powder in his, he has a fondness for it,” Mitsuo Katagiri said calmly as he made himself comfortable in the seat, clearly not intending to leave soon.
The server arranged for the order and supplied them, but neither Yuji nor Mitsuo motioned to take it up. After a half minute or so of silence, with a surge of different emotions criss-crossing his mind in a chaotic mess, Yuji tried to find some solace in a nostalgic drink as he eyed the concoction.
“Haven’t had this since we were at the University graduation,” Yuji quietly lamented as he gripped his glass and finally took a sip, familiarity washing over his tongue.
“You always were too much of a workaholic to go out much,” Mitsuo grunted as he took up his own glass, “Asuka had all but drag you out on your first date.”
“After you and Miyasaka shoved me out the door…”
Mitsuo, in a brief moment of breaking away from his stoicism or sniping this, chuckled at a bygone decade. 1980 was the year they were still young and naïve, still in a time when a monster ravaging a city was aged news spoken by the older crowd. What had been a blazing fireball was now a Tokyo skyline five times higher than it once had been. It would be almost half a decade of bliss before they got a grim reminder.
“Come to try and liquor me up to agreeing?” Yuji mumbled.
“If I intended that, I'd have ordered the strongest sake they got and force-fed it to you,” Mitsuo grunted incredulously, “But we both know you stopped drinking long ago. If anything I just kept you too that.”
“Then why are you here?”
Mitsuo sighed as he shifted and rubbed at the back of his head, rolling his shoulders as if to ready himself, “I know you were indecisive, I wanted to be sure you made the right decision on Commander Aso’s offer with the few days he gave you to choose.”
“Want to make sure I sign up in a way that CCI can get my data again?”
“Shinoda, we both know your data is going to end up with us eventually,” Mitsuo shrugged, “It’s just a matter of when you decide to join the winning team.”
Yuji frowned after taking another sip of milk tea, hoping the familiarity and nostalgia would keep his temper from flaring too much, “It’s always a contest with you, isn’t it? If not with me, it’s with Godzilla.”
“If you think my endeavors are some misplaced crusade to avenge those lost to the last two Godzillas, just stop.”
“You think I like how we ended up?” Yuji sniped as he scoffed, “I would stop thinking that if you hadn’t reacted like I was some kind of traitor for not wanting to go full throttle on weapons development like you did in the hopes I’d be some monster hunter by proxy! Revenge isn’t going to bring them back, Katagiri.”
“You… I…” Katagiri grit his teeth and downed the rest of his milk tea, visibly shaking with his eyes crammed shut to hold back who knew what.
He steeled himself for a full minute before speaking again.
“Deep down, both after you came back from that trip to Odo and all the way to when we met again in Kyoto years later, I’d always wanted us to be on the same team, Shinoda,” Mitsuo lamented with a calm returned to his voice, “You could’ve easily climbed the ranks of CCI like I did.”
“Bury the hatchet instead of having to hit each other with it…” Shinoda sighed, nodding his head with an exasperated exhale, “.. Hm, that certainly would’ve been a different series of events… I just worry at what cost.”
“Security of the human race is something I would make sure to never be a cost,” Katagiri replied, “Which… Is why I’m asking you to reconsider whatever options you’re weighing right now. You see, There’s a plan in motion.”
Yuji glanced at him and perked up enough to show his friend her rival he had his attention.
“G-Force is mobilizing across the Japanese coast, but that means they’re going to have to stretch themselves thin. There are some… non-lethal options that might act as a deterrent. CCI reengineered Dr. Shirigami’s antinuclear bacteria,” Katagiri noted, causing Shinoda’s eyes to perk up.”
“The same stuff from the 1989 incident?”
Mitsuo Katagiri nodded, “We can only make so much, but in theory if it put the last Godzilla into a coma for several years, it might act as a deterrent to the new one. We can only use so much though.”
Yuji picked up the pieces that were being set down, “And… without a way to accurately predict where Godzilla is coming from, if he makes landfall again… It might be hard to set up any launchers carrying the bacteria payload in the right spot.”
Mitsuo nodded, “Either they couldn’t be set up in the right place or they would need to be stretched so thin they wouldn’t be effective…. But if someone could help Commander Aso figure out where Godzilla is going to be.”
There was a chance of driving him off without pursuing any lethal option. When the last Godzilla was overdosed with antinuclear bacteria, it put the beast nearly out of commission for years. It would leave him wide open to potential attack, but it would also force him to the bottom of the ocean. Maybe he could encourage G-Force that a nearly harmless Godzilla was not worth destruction and was more valuable studied. Maybe retreating to an area mankind was not equipped to battle in could spare him from G-Force’s soldiers and CCI’s weapons? Maybe it would encourage Godzilla to never come into the realm of humanity again, seal the dragon away in the sea once more…
Maybe, if it turned out to be true, it would save the last of Io’s childhood that remained.
Or maybe, if his little girl found out the role he played, she would never forgive him….
So many maybes, so many different ways this could go wrong. But flashes of memories from 1984, of maser fire, artillery shells, explosions, and the roar of Odo Island’s beast of destruction all clashing in the Tokyo night sky were strong. Strong enough he would never wish it upon anyone nor wish to see it again.
Strong enough to… Consider the options.
Yuji put down a finished glass of milk tea, feeling the mint wash down his throat. He contemplated for a time before giving his answer.
“… I have one condition.”
===============
“But you never have us send anything over the Internet,” Io noted but didn’t necessarily protest as she spoke into the bulky satellite phone with her father on the other end.
Yuki couldn’t help but perked her brow as she eavesdropped while driving them back to the fishery from Dr. Chapman’s lab.
“I know, I know but… separate off a copy of a few of the algorithms. Not enough to run themselves on their own. I can put in the rest of the data from my notes I keep in my book. I just want to run a few tests to be sure.”
“It's about G-Force fortifying the shores, right?” Io grunted with a bit of terseness in her tone.
Yuji was silent for a time, perhaps contemplating if he should bother with a white lie about misdirecting G-Force but they both knew he couldn’t do that on a clean conscience or get away with it. Not with G-Force. Io couldn’t help but wonder though if her father was being lured back by the promise of a more stable and prestigious life they’d once had, no matter the consequences.
“Yes,” he replied promptly, “Some options are up, nonlethal options. And if I’m wrong then there was no harm done… Just send me the tracking algorithm A through D over email so I can run them on a machine Commander Aso’s letting me use. I’ll foot the service bill.”
“Hey, ask him when he’s coming home?” Yuki chimed in while throwing her voice to the passenger seat.
“Er..” Yuji stiffened, feeling a look upon him even though he was completely alone in the rented-out hotel room, “…. Listen I-“
“Know you have important work to do,” Io stated in a blank, monotone voice, “I’ll be fine alone.”
Yuki frowned and the unseen Yuji audibly sighed as he rubbed at his forehead with a hand.
“Io, I’ll be back by the end of the week,” a few days, three at most, that was his intention, “I promise you that.”
“I’ll be fine,” she reiterated with a bit more emphasis, “I’ve been capable of cooking for myself since I was 10. And Ichinose can drop in to check.”
At that Yuki perked up at being volunteered, though didn’t necessarily oppose it. The willingness by Io of all things was what surprised her. Out of the corner of her eyes she could feel the little hybrid girl looking at her and after blinking through her stupor, she snapped out of it and spoke up.
“Oh- r-right! Fisheries aren’t that far from my apartment anyways. I can drop by, Yuji.”
Another sigh though one less exasperated than before hummed out of the phone.
“Thank you, Yuki… Io, you call the moment anything goes wrong okay? And Io.”
“Yes, father?”
“I’m making sure it’s all non-lethals. We got something that might keep him from coming ashore and scaring people. I’m not going to let G-Force kill him, if it really is him.”
The van was silent for a time before Io finally spoke again after what had been several long moments.
“Rest well, father. I’ll send the code.”
She clicked the phone off and again the car returned to silence. Seeing the street lights flicker by, Yuki tapped her fingers across the wheel several times to bide her thoughts into order. Surprisingly it was Io who spoke first.
“I volunteered you because I know my father trusts you. He’s very secretive about his work getting out into the wrong hands so he doesn’t like many coming by the office,” the girl noted curtly.
“I think he was more concerned about you being alone for several days,” Yuki corrected as she turned down another road, “But, I guess I’m flattered he trusts the security of the second most important thing to him to me.”
“Godzilla Prediction Network’s algorithms can take into account past incursions, water depth, temperatures recorded, standard deviation of marine current flow rate, and other factors to predict where he’s going,” Io explained as she took a sip from her soda bottle.
“Thanks for the refresher, never was much for math myself so I knew you two are doing something on the computer but I never thought to ask what,” Yuki replied, “I take it Commander Aso wants the data to predict where Godzilla might come next.”
“If his kind were easy to track there would be no need for us,” Io shrugged and the use of ‘us’ instead of ‘My father and I’ was not lost on Yuki, “One of the reasons the last one caused so much destruction was because nobody could ever track him reliably. They’d set up a blockade at one bay or harbor, only to find it would go to another one right under their noses.”
“And it’s not like they can cover the ocean with oversized fish finders reliably,” Yuki quipped as she turned towards the highway to lead to the fishery, “So Aso wants to have an idea of where Godzilla might pop up with all these defenses G-Force is having to erect.”
A slight sniffle was audible for the briefest of moments, causing Yuki to glance over and see Io was hiding her face; though this time behind her long bangs rather than any psychic gift. In the shadows of the passing streetlights, Yuki didn’t need clarity to understand the mood the little girl had upon her.
“… Hey, women’s secret. Just between you and me. Speak up if you want to be heard, not a word of it leaves this van.”
“I worry about what would happen if G-Force seriously attacked him…” Io whispered.
Yuki frowned, taking in a deep breath before sighing on the exhale, “Think the toys they and C.C.I. got could actually hurt or kill him…? I’m serious, they kept failing all the time with the last one, and didn’t your father think he’s stronger?”
“And I’m serious,” Io reaffirmed with a quivering snap, “They’re scared and they want him dead.
Yuki grimaced, “Your father did say they were going for non-lethals.”
Io slowly shook her head, “I... don’t know. But, even if they can't, I really hope they can’t… I’m…”
She looked out the window to the distant horizon where the ocean would be. The words from the hospital rang back to her head, ones she knew her father shouted only in a moment of passionate indignation and worry. But ones that came from a wise source. One who do what it was like to be on the receiving end of a monster attack. That we childhood friend wasn’t ‘Junior’ anymore, he was ‘Godzilla’ now. The same type of beast that turned Tokyo into a fireball decades ago, then tore it apart years later before battling other behemoths with wanton devastation in their wake for the people caught in the crossfire. Odo Island’s sea titan of destruction.
“I’m scared he’d stop being Junior…”
===================
Nightfall, Tokyo Harbor
===================
The dolphin forced its way onto the nightly beach far further than any should have, breaching onto the land and squirming in the sand in a way that would have spelled certain doom for any marine mammal trying to avoid getting beached. But any semblance of normality was quickly smothered when the dorsum of the creature split open like a peeling banana.
The whale unit which had ferried them away from the ship when the mutation attacked managed to enact one last service to the collective by distracting the creature. In the midst of the chaos the mutation would not have noticed the interior was mostly water, rapidly siphoned into the body like a swelled-up balloon to form a facsimile of a completed form. The hollowed-out interior had been ejected; recombining based on other stored genomes the collective had acquired during the brief periods the ship might be graced with enough power to stir from dormancy. Rogue volcanic eruptions, unusually high amounts of lightning, and other chance events over the millennia they had otherwise slumbered allowed for a vast sampling of the oceanic biosphere. But until now they had never broken free.
Until now, they had never touched dry land.
Biomass shifted; genomes being recombined to form a new epidermis facsimile. There was only one native organism that had been acquired which could navigate terrestrial biospheres on this planet without raising suspicion. The tissues that once made up a dolphin, shed away like a peeled cloak to sprout two legs and make arms out of the flippers. Everything else extraneous was compacted within or split away. Even a facsimile of clothing, at first from an archaic era of exploration hundreds of years past, was generated from living tissue.
The drone trudged up the beach, becoming more and more stable with every step. They only paused to inspect an odd growth adhered to the knee inhibiting their stride. A cancerous, tumor-like pustule of bone and other tissues stuck out from the joint. The drone gripped it and without any sense of tactile pain ripped it away, the wound sealing instantly despite the chunk of bone taken away. Damaged DNA had been detected and thus had to be ejected away. Biomass that made up the clothing was re-contextualized and reorganized to fix the knee joint. A conscious glance was cast to the sky for the cause. Horizontal eyelids blinked and what appeared to be human eyes were replaced by a cephalopods’ of equivalent size.
The natural satellite of this planet, the moon, was reflecting ultraviolet radiation from its star but only barely so. The thick atmosphere filtered out most of it, to the degree that it was but a fraction of daytime. This information was stored and dispersed, as well as the conscious thought to seek out cover during the day. They had to last as long as they could before the thousands of chromosomes housed within their repository cells sustained more damage.
Looking to the interior of this Terran hive, observations and data salvaged from their seagoing vessel were confirmed. The archaic Portuguese sailing attire they had been wearing shifted and almost seemed to melt, recombining into new fibers that were knit together to approximate clothing; but with every strand in every seam of fabric still being very much alive. Now they were much more presentable, emulating the attire of the Eiko-Ryu crew, which more closely matched the crowds. The shape of Captain Reinhardt in his CCI attire stepped into the streets to join with the crowds. And it was in those crowds, the sea of faces and passersby in the dark city, where they might not be picked out so easily. Emulation was never 100% perfect, not with the damages incurred and lack of a buffer agent. If seen at a distance or in a crowd, one probably would think nothing of the minor distinctions. Especially now that they had acquired several dozen more human genomes to distribute. But an uncanniness would not be easily removed.
But for now this would more than do, especially after several more acquisitions. The drone eyed an alleyway with several local fauna, spotting a brown rodent with a white spot feasting on refuse alongside several birds. Back at the beach, across multiple kilometers, more and more marine forms hauled themselves onto the shore. Squid, sea turtles, deep-sea fish of various sizes, a few sharks, and more. And amongst their number they all began to tear themselves apart and put themselves back together.
What had been attached to a sea turtle realigned itself with new information, twisting and contorting its body until what had been a hunk of reptile sprouted fur, short clawed feet, and a scaly tail to scamper onto the streets as a common brown rat with a white spot on its back. It scurried along the power lines and terraces until it reached a small diner playing Broadcasting Satellite Digital Q News Station on the television. The not-rodent hunkered down on the rafters and watched.
As the second drone watched the footage, documenting the military strike on the mutation called Godzilla at the cliffside that the whale drone had lured it to, feed of the scuttled Eiko-Ryu was flashed across the screen.
“BS Digital Q News report update, this is Yuri Tachibana,” the caster, a redheaded woman sitting in a paltry-looking studio motioned to a projection beside her, “The missing Eiko-Ryu was found with no hands on deck. G-Force and CCI have launched an investigation as to the cause, but many are already speculating that the nearby Godzilla sighting is tied to the disappearances of the crew members, including CCI Captain Ulysses Reinhardt-“
The shape and visage of the acquired captain flashed across the screen, followed by a sequence of many other deckhands and crew members of the ghost ship.
“-And Computer Engineer Eijo Kaiyama. Now we do reaffirm that none of the crewmembers have been declared deceased and are still labeled as missing, having possibly abandoned ship,” the redheaded newscaster continued, “Officials are asking all citizens to keep an eye out for any of the crewmembers who might have escaped but are in a daze, a reward has been put out for any leads that lead to the safe discovery for any of the crew. Once again the missing persons include-“
Every single drone in a human visage stopped what they were doing. The third drone took a pause and stepped away from the crowds. The salaryman, heading for his apartment, never saw what looked almost exactly like Computer Engineer Eijo Kaiyama until the third drone was already upon him. A hand that no longer was such covered his vocalization orifice to ensure he couldn’t call out as he was dragged off into the shadows. A new genome was assimilated and distributed by the time a curious family member poked her head out from their apartment wondering what was taking her father so long. All she would find was the suitcase.
Blocks away the fifth drone, now looking like a salary worker returning home, stepped into a karaoke studio. Finding an occupied room at the end of the hall, a split hand was pressed into the lock. Soft cartilage was generated from the fingertip and forced into the lock, the cells altering to become bone in the exact shape of the key. The door was unlocked, opened, and shut before the occupant who came here to blow off stress from work by singing was even aware of their company. They could only process what parts of them didn’t look like a salaryman when squid tendrils wrapped around her face.
The forty-sixth drone, still dressed in a gaudy karaoke attire, stepped back into the accounting office the assimilated once worked at. The electronic lock code was perfectly repeated from the front door to the computer room. Seating itself under the illumination of computer monitors and the glowing-stick necklace it had approximated with deep-sea fish bioluminescence, a method more suitable for interface was desired. The left arm split apart at every finger in joint, becoming a mass of neurons and nerve bundles as the right arm gripped the keyboard out of the socket and gripped the wires. Nerves were wrapped around the exposed copper, bioelectric signals replacing computer key inputs to manipulate the computer far faster than any human could type. Dozens of files were sifted through what a matter of seconds, web browsers flying across the screen. They generated a few more eyeballs to take in the data quicker and relay it to the collective.
The first drone, altering its appearance to not look exactly like Capt. Reinhardt by mixing and matching skin tones and hair textures, took in everything that was fed to it. Mysterians, Godzilla, Crisis Control Intelligence, Biollante, King Ghidorah, Futurians, Mothra, Battra, Mechagodzilla, Radon, SpaceGodzilla, MOGUERA, Super-X 1 2 and 3, Destroyah, Tokyo, Yuri Tachibana….”
The screens flickered across the young news caster’s visage and relayed more and more information.
“Apprenticed under – Yuki Ichinose
Employment - BS Digital Q News
Address – Contacts – Family -
Father - Admiral Taizo Tachibana”
Now information on the redheaded newscaster’s parent was in focus, birth records, employment, medical history, military service, and more connections were sifted through and absorbed.
“Superior – Subcommander Stacker Pentecost, Commander Takaaki Aso
Employment - G-Force...”
The logo of G-Force, the group that made war with giants, and all they’d accomplished were cycled into.
All knew what the logo looked like now, and the fifty second had found it. The guards didn’t notice the flock of birds flying in right overhead. Nor did any heed that some of the birds were moving as one despite being different species, or that they were all varieties one would find on the beachside. Nor did any of the drones notice that they, in the form of some of the birds which broke off and headed east, realize they were being followed as well. The flock of unnatural birds were secretly tailed by a small form riding a steed no bigger than a shoebox.
================
Yuri Tachibana huffed as she paced away from the payphone, pouting as she put her arms behind her head and looked up at the night sky while out on a nightly route. Trying to call her father, a G-Force Admiral, to get some inside details on the operation over at the Amami Islands had been a bust.
“Too precarious”, he said.
“Aso is not allowing press on the island”, he said.
“Missions like this are highly dangerous and the men and women who partake in them don’t want anyone else at risk,” her parent reminded.
She honestly felt like reminding him the whole reason she wanted to become a reporter was not only to bring information to the people, but in focusing on these extreme out of the ordinary topics she was wanting to celebrate the very careers like the one her father had taken to after her mother passed away. When G-Force was first formed in 1989, Aso scouted her old man from the JSDF due to his shared personal experience from the original 1954 attack and his honorable service prior. Her father might’ve insisted she not follow him into the military, especially one concentrated on fighting literal monsters, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be disconnected. If men and women were willing to put their lives on the line, then they deserve recognition as much as the public deserved information.
And hey, if family connections got her places many other reporters, especially those from fairly small studios like the ‘bargain basement of the airways’ she worked for. But if she thought her coverage of the juvenile Destroyah and Godzilla brawl four years ago would be her ticket to hit the big times, reality caught up with her in light of her age. She still had a ways to go and had hoped the current operations would be another big steppingstone.
Not like there would be many more left, Commander Aso’s proclamation that there would be a new era for humanity without monsters had never looked so feasible and yet distant at the same time.
Suddenly Yuri flinched. Young Miss Tachibana stopped in her step and after a moment or two, subtly tilted her head to the side as if she was admiring one of the buildings across the street from her. It was a fairly dark area, only marginally lit by a few lights and nobody except her was out. Nobody except the footstep she had perceived off to her right behind her. Her father might’ve insisted she couldn’t join the armed forces in the family tradition, but he also had insisted on plenty of self-defense classes. Yakuza weren’t the only ones known to pick pretty young ladies off the street.
She heard a shifting and spun around with one hand at her hip, reaching for a hidden taser.
It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a public pretty face like hers to get a stalker, it was something they warned her about when becoming a newscaster. Usually they were just overenthusiastic fans without a grasp of personal boundaries but even the worst of them were typically spineless. Notice them and call them out, and they would usually back off. And if not, a couple dozens of thousands of volts would do the talking.
She expected to see somebody rapidly stumble away or try to make an effort to hide. Which is why Tachibana was more than a little surprised to see a fairly tall figure rapidly power walking up to her. If it was just another random passerby that happened to be on the same path, they surely should have noticed her body language doing plenty of talking, especially when she threw caution into the wind, pulled out the taser that might even be mistaken for a gun in low light, and pointed it right at them.
“Stop! Back off!” Tachibana yelled.
They kept coming, now a full sprint. The features were different enough that she couldn’t quite pinpoint where exactly she had seen this individual. But something about him was familiar. The hair color and skin tone were off, but the posture in general build reminded her a lot of someone she had covered just recently. Her eyes widened both at the recognition of passing traits belonging to some of the Eiko-Ryu crew, but also at the figure rapidly shedding those traits.
Shedding them and any other semblance of humanity besides posture, and the flesh almost seemed to melt and re-contort into half the stock of a seafood market.
Tachibana raised the taser and fired, the twin prongs sticking into a raised arm that was splitting apart and widening until it resembled some kind of… turtle shell? One prong only very lightly stuck in at the tip, the other bounced off a scute. Yuri Tachibana swore as the entity, for there was no other word to describe it, crashed into her and tackled her into an alleyway.
The world became a vertigo as she cried out, kicking and flailing to try and get free. The entity continued to split apart, almost like it was making a vacant void at the center before pulling her closer. Almost liquid-like flesh started to creep up her elbow. Gritting her teeth and trying to think fast, the glint of metal caught Yuri’s attention. The loose prong from the taser flailed past her face and she just barely had the consciousness even in a panicked mind to grab it. Holding it between her fist, the newscaster hollered out as she stabbed it into the fleshy arm that extended past the turtle shell that was pushed up against her.
The sparks lightly burnt her hand, but the current was connected. Over 50,000 volts flew free from the taser, a telltale crackling sound emanating from the self-defense tool. Rather than outright fall, the entity flinched but otherwise didn’t react. Tachibana kicked the bindings off her leg and arm and staggered away, falling through several trash bags while trying to scramble back to her feet.
The way the entity stood there while getting shocked did quickly put to rest any notion it was being harmed, or even necessarily impeded. If anything, it looked… almost curious. A fleshy tendril held up the taser apparatus before what revealed itself to be multiple sets of eyes; many of them not human.
Many of those eyes looked to Tachibana as the taser prongs were harmlessly removed. Holding the self-defense tool in one limb, or at least what could be best described as one, the Millennian drone started to advance.
Mind racing for escape options, Tachibana didn’t expect her attention to be taken away from such an abomination so easily. The twisting limbs, in the process of reconfiguring into a singular form instead of a writhing mass of human and marine animal parts, was eerie in its uncanniness. But, having sudden bursts of purple light emit from a speeding object the size of a shoebox that zoomed over the entity would do that. Especially when the flares of purple light impacted and burned the being’s epidermis with a jet of sparks.
The Millennian drone recoiled back in surprise as the flying object zoomed down the alley, flew up, and came back at it from overtop Yuri’s head. In the split second she saw the outline pass underneath a building light from a far-away tower, Tachibana perceived what looked almost like a small winged reptile with something falling off or jumping from its back.
Said object twisted around, there was a burst of light coming from a shape in its… hands?
Landing on a glowing rune that spun about on the ground underneath her, heeled boots clicked on the pavement as several ancient spells were enacted. Size alteration, mass shifting, and most importantly of all, kinetic multiplication. Going from roughly 13 centimeters tall to a dozen times that, a woman in chiefly purple and dark gray armor seemed to otherwise materialize out of nowhere and swung up a broad short staff upwards like a bat. The Millennian drone was whacked across the middle, the impact site glowing with a spinning rune before contact was broken. It reacted less like it had been whacked by a fairly short person with a rod and more like it had been hit by a truck, being knocked upwards onto the rooftop a story up in a spiraling mess.
Looking up through the visor of their helmet, Tachibana’s savior turned about to face her briefly. In the low light detail was hard to make out, especially against their dark-hued attire, but the armor they wore was completely covering. It didn’t especially resemble any historic group known to the frazzled Yuri’s mind, but the form, an armored short dress covering plate mail atop a bodysuit and masked helmet did give off a vaguely feminine appearance. Though their short stature at just under five feet tall might have contributed. Still, she wasn’t much one to question events as the seemingly glowing eyes of the visor stared at her, flanked by decorative flanges resembling Battra’s wings.
“Do me a favor and scram,” a snarky and yet also snide tone huffed before the armored figure burst into motion.
They put the bludgeon, revealed to be a scabbarded sword, back at their hip, and jumped up as a rune of seeming magic engulfed them. The flying reptile from before, resembling a miniature European dragon, flew back over as Balvera shrunk back to her normal size and remounted Garu-Garu.
No sooner did Belvera pilot Garu-Garu to the rooftop did a bright flash alert her to danger. She commanded the artificial drake to right for an evasive maneuver, spurring Garu-Garu to roll back down and swoop to get behind a transformer for cover. It proved a wise decision as the transformer exploded when a magnificent flash detonated the structure in a shower of sparks and shrapnel. Belvera watched on through her visor as the entity moved behind the cover, turning about and leaping across the rooftops. The form was mostly white with black across the dorsum and joins, sporting yellowish spines and tusks. The shape was vaguely pantherine, with a long body, four robust limbs, and a long tail; but the resemblance stopped there. Belvera had seen many a beast in her multiple tens of thousands of years lifespan, natural ones as well as beasts altered by ambient magic or some foolish mortal mage. Pump enough mana into a crocodile and it would become a dragon. But even the most altered beasts or people still bore some semblance of what they were naturally.
There was no such here, and she didn’t sense a hint of magic on the entity.
The Forty Fifth Drone transmitted what is saw via generating a Terran sea bird’s keen eye on the back of the Toakan Balkzardan tail. Its pursuer was still following it, keeping pace on some kind of small flying creature that curiously gave off few biologic signals. Digging its claws into the rooftop and swinging about, the couch-sized apex predator spun about and changed direction, springing off a balcony to swing at its attacker while also collecting auditory and olfactory information along with the visual.
It’s prudish attempt was met with failure to wound but success to analyze.
Despite wearing some kind of armor, the smell and pheromones multiple nostrils generated across the drone’s body indicated it was a variety of mammal very similar to a human, but distinct in many regards. Not only was the size variable but far below what was to be expected, but there was a distortion. An admission of energy pulsating off it that was uncanny as it was unpalatable. The collective agreed with the findings as unsuitable. It was already in a huge risk taking on this replicated genome, failure would ensue rapidly with the lack of buffer agent.
Do not collect, kill.
The Balkzardan’s form crackled with biogenerated electricity and fired.
This time Garu-Garu couldn’t fully avoid the shot, a mere second having passed after the monster had pounced at them before it was electrocuted by a salvo of hurled energy fired from the drone’s tusks and maw. Bevlera grit her teeth as she bailed off from her crashing mount. Diminutive size had its advantages. Square cube law meant that neither she nor Garu-Garu had a lot of mass for the force of impact to be all that much when they crashed into and skid across the roof. She did however know that the bounding footsteps approaching called for action.
Tusks dove at her and jaws parted, exposing rows of fangs resembling shark teeth that were poised to snap down on her midsection. Tucking her legs in, Belvera did the only thing she could to avoid potential death by diving into the gullet.
The replicated Balkzardan knew where its opponent had gone, it could feel the heinous energy causing damage to its oral cavity already. Not content with trying to crunch or swallow its foe, the alien apex predator’s entire body started to electrify as the organs producing the charge went into overdrive. They might have succeeded in doing some serious damage had the rune from earlier not appeared underneath them. Battra’s image spun about in activation, and a rapidly growing sword slashed through the underside of Balkzardan’s jaw from the inside to open a wound. No ichors or blood flowed as Belvera, quickly growing to several feet tall, tumbled out with a hacking cough as her armor smoked.
The Balkzardan let out a howl that sounded like scraping metal as it bounded backwards and landed on a powerline pole. Snapping the cables rich with power, its true nature was again made a reminder when several copies of its own head generated from its arms and bit down on the cables. All about its body energy started to crackle as lights in the streets flickered out. All the while the alien carnivore started to let out a whirling noise akin to a turbine firing up.
Staggering to her feet, Belvera swore in an ancient tongue and rapidly slashed the tip of her sword into the pavement of the roof to carve a symbol. The rune was etched and filled with a pulse of magic just as the Balkzardan’s jaws split open from the tip all the way to the base of the throat, like some grotesque parody of a flower blooming. Some liquid fired out under a high stream of pressure, acting as the conductor line for a truly enormous burst of lightning.
Multiple bolts fired free as the liquid impacted and splashed across a purple dome of energy that flickered to life around the eldest Elias sister. Each bolt smashed against it soon after the conductor fluid splashed across the shield like a wave battering at a boulder with a resounding crash each time. The barrier rapidly flickered, as if it was trying to modulate to better hold up against the onslaught, but there was a limit. Cracks started to form across the domed surface, as the roof split and fractured from impact after impact.
Finally, with another splash of conductive fluid, almost like organic metal, a crash of thunder smashed into the shield and shattered it. The barrier broke like splintering glass and sounded as such, solidified mana scattering in flying shards that disintegrated into nothingness. The Balkzardan compressed its extended maw back together, stitching the split throat that made up the majority of the length back into a whole. The entire street had been blacked out, numerous lights having burst or been drained of their sustainment, and the whole of the roof was marred with charring where even the pavement had been superheated to the point of burning. An expansive black mark swelled out from where Belvera’s shield once stood.
And yet, the rune carved into the surface was largely unmarked.
The Millennian drone, thinking the enemy dealt with, started to convert its biomass back into a Terran genome. Parts of it were already steaming and disintegrating from structural failure. The tail of the Balkzardan practically sloughed off and crumbled away before it even hit the ground. The last maneuver had been a dangerous gambit, and it knew its time was running short. With the threat dealt with it could refocus its remaining time on scouting out to add to the collective’s knowledge and genome bank and-
It paused when a partially generated human eye noticed a small hole cut into the middle leading into the building proper. Then a flash of light on a window as a rune appeared on it. It spiraled and swirled with increasing intensity as a symbol likewise appeared under the partially morphed Balkzardan paws on the power pole. A word in a language unknown seemed to appear in a calligraphy-like form, rapidly spinning into the symbol seen before as it let out a shriek.
The drone reflexively jumped off from the power pole just before the symbol erupted in an upwards explosion that screamed through the air. The window likewise exploded and a rapidly growing Belvera came diving outwards in a war cry with her sword poised. She lunged at the drone with the Elias Triangle blade crackling with an ancient magic, missing her stab as the Balkzardan bit down on the blade like a rabid dog.
As it thrashed about, giving no heed to the conducting energy that seemed to less shock it and more induce cancerous growths to form along the contact points, the Balkzardan tried to shock, swat, or swipe at the grown Shobijin. She grunted from the blows and fidgeted from the shocks, but held firm as they tumbled through the air. The electrocutions seemed to affect it more than she, for entire parts of the body seemed to crumble from overuse of them.
Gritting her teeth under her helmet, Belvera kicked at the shapeshifter as she positioned it below her, reaching out and stabbing the near-indestructible blade of her rapier-like sword into the sidewall of a building to slow her fall enough to grab a ledge. The ever taciturn Millennian drone let out no cry as it smashed into several balconies and garbage bins on its tumble down; hardly giving heed to wounds that shattered limbs and would have snapped backbones.
Belvera huffed as she dragged herself onto a balcony and looked below, disgusted at what she saw. The half-transformed Balkzardan was rapidly becoming less and less of that. The head and crumbling hindquarters were both shed and sloughed off, flopping to the ground as they turned cancerous in mass and crumbled to dust. The tissues that remained were rapidly cycled to something growing increasingly feathery, separating and ripping free from one another. Before her very eyes, the chosen Elias of Battra witnessed her enemy go from one to many, dividing up its biomass into a flock of birds of various types.
This she couldn’t allow.
Kicking off the balcony, the Elias Triangle was poised at her foe, the tip was thrust downwards in a serious of swirling, jabbing motions that trailed light; as if writing a rune upon the air. The symbol for ‘combustion’ in a language lost to time immemorial was scrawled to human eyes, before morphing into a resonance of the tattoo that was placed upon the oldest Elias’ sister’s back. The rune of Battra appeared below the malefic, twisting and whirling in the manner of rolling gears. Spinning faster still, the rune shrieked and shot forth a geyser of fire and explosive energy.
The birds were caught up in the blast, thrown upwards and falling back down as they were caught in yet another blast. Several were vaporized, others amassed together into a singular form to dampen the force of impacts with a larger biomass. Belvera landed on her feet some distance away and turned about as quick as she could.
The drone was charging her now, vaguely in the shape of a human now but just barely. It towered over her and hurled itself forth with all abandon, flashing lights of bioluminescence and crackling with biological abilities unknown to Terra.
She thrust her sword forward and ran it through, but the drone gave little heed to being impaled. It fell upon the Shobijin, trying to wrap her in tendrils, gnash through armor with teeth, shock through her garb with electricity, or bash her to a bruised pulp with flailing limbs. Belvera cried out as she was slammed into the back wall of the alley, her armor holding but damage being incurred. She was being bashed, constricted, and thrown about all at once.
Plenty would have been terrorfied.
And frankly, she’d never been more pissed off.
Gripping a mass of squid tendrils and jellyfish stingers with one hand and wrenching her sword about with the other, Belvera craved the rune for ‘Combustion’ in the air behind the dying and manic drone, her sword’s tip engraving the symbol in the air through the body it was impaled into. She drew her arm back to rebury the tip inside what had been the drone’s torso.
The swirling rune and shriek came again. From inside the Drone.
The erupting geyser of magical flames split the air and would have blinded anyone who looked directly at it. What had been body parts; human, animal, and alien, went flying everywhere before disintegrating to nothing but ash. After several minutes, Belvera staggered out from the alleyway, back to her normal size and the entire front of her armor covered in char marks.
It had been fortuitous she had had the sense to pick up the suit of armor she had been working on improving from the same Pre-Toba Shobijin cache she found Garu-Garu in, for she did not want to think about how messy that would’ve been without it. Speaking of Garu-Garu, she grumbled upon looking at the height from the ground to the rooftop she had left her steed on. The several inch-tall fairy shrugged haggardly before postulating how to get up to the top again.
“Useless hunk of metal, shoulda just asked Moll and Lora to have my own Fairy; wouldn’t even matter if it was a Mothra. Lea’s half Battra anyways,” the eldest Elias grumbled as she started to jump up sections of a ladder length by length.
Lamentations of her current mount aside, tonight had confirmed plenty of things she didn’t want to see. Plenty of threats afoot. Plenty of humans acting stupid. And with Lea out of commission there was only one hope. One hope the human leadership didn’t know was their best chance.
It wasn’t like she could just walk up to G-Force and tell them. Her relationship with them was not the sweetest given her role in her master’s indignation some years ago at their arrogance. Either they would refuse to hear a word she said or their prideful mad scientists at C.C.I. would stop at nothing to try and cut her open and understand how magic spells work as if she had a How-To book written in her blood cells.
Not like they could ever capture her, but at this point having to fight her way out while likely leaving bodies in her wake wouldn’t bode any favors to trying to convince them danger was afoot. She needed proof.
A glance back to the alleyway confirmed no such thing, just ash scattered in the wind.
Managing to get back to the rooftop, Belvera glared at the city. Loathe as she was to this messy, modern civilization, it wasn’t the lamentation of pollution or arrogance that control over nature that sent a cold down her back.
It was the thought of how many strange minds she’d detected earlier, and how far they were scattered. And how, despite their greatness a number, it somehow still felt just like one.
Collecting herself, Belvera knelt at the rooftop and clasped her hands.
This wasn’t a situation she could solve on her own, but as the Battra tattoo on her back indicated as it started to flicker with dim light; she wasn’t alone. Her prayer sent a message to the resting goddess of Infant Island.
Many kilometers away and high on a rooftop, a flock of assorted seabirds stood motionless on the edge of the ledge; silent and calm despite some being small gulls standing next to a potential predator in a very large Steller’s Sea Eagle. The avians observed the GPN van Yuki and Io were within heading back from Dr. Chapman’s lab, eyes reflecting in the bright glow of the city and highway’s lights as more of them flew over to join the flock.
Young Miss Shinoda couldn’t have guessed the satellite phone’s frequency was being tapped into.
“Godzilla - Prediction - Network’s - algorithms - can - take - into - account -"
"-other - factors - to - predict - where - he’s – going- ”
“Just - send - me - the - tracking - algorithm - A - through - D - over - email”
“G-Force - fortifying - the - shores - Father.”
“I'm - Not - going - to - let - G-Force - kill - him”
“Commander - Aso - Promise - Nonlethals. Will-”
"You - be - alright?"
“I’ll - be - fine - alone”
The birds rent themselves asunder. Animate liquid and tendrils sought one another and stitched, then melded into one another. The bird feathers became fish scales, then cephalopod skin, then a facsimile of human skin and clothing as an unusually tall man stood up on the rooftop to project the message to the hidden ship hiding in the clouds to charge itself on moonlight. The troublesome fauna which had messied plans at the Eiko-Ryu and Lucky Dragon, might have a solution. The figure burst after transmitting the message, dividing once again and taking flight to trail the GPN right back to the fisheries.
art by Zeroviks
art by FallenAngel5414
Amazing chapter. It’s nice to see that there is more to Katagiri than being a jerk, especially with that empathic moment he shared with Yuji. I certainly didn’t expected Belvera, the Shimojin of Battra, to appear nor did I expected the Millenials to have such a terrifying power set. Keep going, Tarb.
Holy shit, that Millenian drone is one creepy mother.
Seriously giving me vibes of John Carpenter's The Thing here.
And I did NOT expect to see Belvera turn up in this! That was a real shock.
But a nice one too. The fight with the drone was a real standout.
Also, on the character side of things, I *really* enjoyed the scene with Katagiri and Shinoda at the start of this installment. That was very well-done. ^_^
ok holy fuck these Milennian Dronesa re like an unholy blend of Tyranids, The Thing and Shoggoths with a touch of Slenderman thrown in for mister creepy stalker dude. Also holy fuck belvera's a professional asskicker, and while she's wrong about needing to disect her[Theodore has been working on it] she's right to not wanna get involved with CCI.
Did not expect Belvera to literally divebomb her way into the plot. Enjoyed the fight scene of this part. It did a good job of showing how strong Belvera was. And Orga in this take is being creepy af.
Again this is awesome, but I detect an error. You said the Anti Nuclear Bacteria put Godzilla Senior in a coma for five years. How can this be since that happened in 1989 and Senior was active the whole time against Mecha King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, and Xenilla. Did you mix that up with when he was sealed in a volcano from 1984 to 1989?
5423793
Yes, that was from a very old part of the write up and I missed a detail. I adjusted it back to what it was supposed to be, several years.
Liked how you referenced Balkzardan from Godzilla trading battle using the Millenian's shape shifting abilities. Would you say that this kaiju may have been around at one point in Terra's history or is he, along with the other five trading battle exclusive kaiju, non canon?
5423972
Probably some alien kaiju from a world the Millennian assimilated. And yes, they are canon to the Amalgam'verse/The Bridge
Damn what a chapter. My gurl Belvera knows how to kick some Ass. And again, more nightmare fuel images my brain, yaaaaaaay.
5427601
I thought you'd like it hehe.
Figured story needed some levity and so, someone had to kick some Millennian posterior.
Pathos between Katagiri & Shinoda in this scene, and the implied history was compelling to read.
Good bonding scene between Io & Yuki.
This scene did good adding to the extraterrestrial theme of Orga. This rewrite honestly feels like a What If scenario fight Between Godzilla & The Thing. Only it’s not a false advertisement for Godzilla vs Mothra. Lol.
This scene really showed how capable in a fight a Shobijin is, which I’ll admit to not being used to seeing Shobijin given the badass fighter treatment but it’s not one that I necessarily oppose.
Overall, this was a good chapter in getting the ball rolling for an upcoming confrontation between our heroes & Orga.
Extremely awesome introduction of Belvera. The (hot) badass lass really got to show off some of her stuff during that fight. Again you are really great when it comes to horror. How these creatures act and shift in their form is so creepy but in a good way. It really sells the terror they cause in others and makes Belvera standing up to it all that much more awesome. (Also seems like Retsuko is dead. Pity. XD)
Another thing to note that I really liked was how you're humanizing Katagiri. He does have every right to fear and want to get rid of something he sees as a threat to his nation. The previous Godzillas caused death and destruction that really hasn't healed in the mind of the Japanese. Even if it does lead him down a bad path, it's at least understandable. So I really like that scene with him and his former coworker, Yuji, drinking. So fantastic stuff.
I like the conversation at the start, shows the relationship between the characters.
However, mention of the skyline also kinda brings to mind the Tower of Bibel. Humanity building itself higher to put themselves higer after being knocked down.
I do like the indications of Katagiri having more depth and for all his faults, he's not entirely without more beneath the surface.
I do like that he's at least trying to find anti-lethals for Yuji's sake.
I do like that while Yuji does take this deal, he is both honest for the most part with Io and is smart enough to avoid giving CCI what they need to replicate his tracking ability.
I do also like that Yuki and Io having bonded quite a bit more, which happens earlier here than in the movie.
I do also like that Io is scarted ot G-Force turning Godzilla on humanity.
And oh boy, more body horror. Even more so given the clothes are also biological. I do like for the perspective of the aliens on everything. It's rather creepy, but also makes it clear how alien they are.
And unlike the Thing, that individual drones don't need to absorb something to copy it, only one needs to.
Their powers and shapeshifting make them terrifying. And nice take on them obtaining information in a terrifying way.
I do like that Tachibana isn't defenseless and knows how to defend herself, but she finds herself against a monster that a normal human is a bit outmatched here. But she does manage to defend escape.
Thankfully, she gets saved by something much stronger than a human. Namely, the priestess of Battra.
And I notice Belvera's spell as pretty much being the same as the one that Valerie from Langoud Europe's shillelagh is enchanted with, only here very much showcasing exactly what that spell can do in the hands of a much more powerful fae with much more magic at her disposal. Completely coincidental in every way, shape and form, as we wrote these completely independant of each other, but accidental continuity is fun.
Of course the drone assumes Balkzardan's form, nice use of a kaiju that never made it to a move.
And these things can't really handle mana, and and are very vulnerable to it. As such, Belvera going inside and blasting it from the inside with it does heavily damage.
Giving praise to the very creative and horrifying use of the drone's shapeshifting abilities. Of course, it and its hive mind doesn't know what magic can do, and it pays for that. This dang thing just won't die easily, but Belvera won't give up and she's quite capable of fighting back and thankfully fae, especially one empowered by something divine.
I really love the finisher of here.
I love how despite how terrifying that situation was, to Belvera isn't just frustrated and annoyed.
Over all, good chapter, shows really cool fights and establishes what our villains can do.