Godzilla 2000: New Era, PART 7 · 10:47pm Dec 30th, 2020
PART 6
Proofed by Lance-Omikron
Hina, Akira, and Odo Island cast by FallenAngel5414
Belvera had been scouting out to try and find more of the enemy, having little luck as they seemed to have made themselves scarce in the day's light, when it hit her. The reach and exertion of a mind. Not of magic, at least none she used, but of something extraordinary all the same. Flying Garu-Garu back to the fisheries, the source of the mental pulse was soon found when she hovered beside an apartment window.
There was a girl inside, one of the strange hybrids she'd heard of but only seen once before with Miki. And she was writhing in pain from seemingly no source.
Moll and Lora would have instantly jumped to the child's aid, and while years of pessimism had tempered Belvera's heart, it wasn't so cold as to be able to look away for more than a few moments.
As Io thrashed about, gripping her scalp and rolling off her footing once again, a flood of fears and angers coursed through her mind. A terrible rage like a brewing storm started to fester until-... It stopped.
She didn't see the rune of magic glowing beneath her across the floor, nor the several inch tall faerie casting the spell from the window. All she experienced was nothingness, like falling asleep. Io passed out where she lay.
Belvera ceased the spell, alerted to but confused as to what she'd found. It wasn't a curse, a demon, or any other malefic force at work. And with it happening in the same city as the other current problems afoot, there was no way she was writing this off as some strange spasm of psychic powers like a waking nightmare. The light bruises on the girl's skin were all too real.
She mentally reached out and felt around, as one might through an impenetrable mist. But what couldn't be perceived could still be felt. And like a threaded string, she felt a tether. One she couldn't break. One she couldn't identify.
One, she felt go far out into the ocean.
Belvera remounted Garu-Garu and sped off in that direction to follow it.
==================
Godzilla practically ignored the artillery pieces pinging off his skin despite the stinging, reacting to it no more than a human getting hit with pebbles. The hits were registering, but failing to wound. This did not go against the desired plan, as that wasn’t the objective. Instead the desire to coax the leviathan into the shallows was coming to fruition as the artillery pieces were situated mostly behind Godzilla and firing at its dorsum, hundreds of pounds of explosives detonating against reinforced scale and spine every second to illuminate the creature in near perpetual clouds of smoke and bursts of flame. It did have the desired effect of motivating it forward, though it also had the unfortunate side effect of severely intimidating anyone who had to look the creature head on. Seeing it advance forward without a care to the onslaught, surrounded by smog and explosions of light gave it the visage of a demon advancing from hell.
Godzilla stepped onto a shallow water shelf, causing it to rise out of the surf past its knees now. Despite still standing in dozens of meters worth of water, the kaiju towered over the terrain and buildings neighboring the waterway; casting a long shadow in the bursts of light engendered by the exploding artillery.
Commander Aso swallowed and steeled himself after realizing the moment of truth was upon him. Godzilla’s maw started to glow with growing light as it faced the command post and mountain behind them.
“Now! Send the ANEB carrying missiles! Full Metal launchers fire!”
Plumes of smoke blotted out entire streets as massive projectiles were unleashed. A full salvo, a dozen missiles of 12-meter-long solid metal spears, went rocketing towards the dragon and struck home. Godzilla’s jaw opened up in a yelp of surprise and pain when the solid metal javelins bit into its hide and buried their tips into it. The thrusters continued igniting for a time, driving the tips deeper and deeper in until they were surely past the dermis and within the blood vessels and muscle below like a dozen oversized needles. There was no explosion, as any charges had been removed and replaced with a bacterial payload; but the intended purpose was clearly met when red blood oozed out from several points.
Godzilla gurgled and staggered, stabbed six times in the chest and stomach, twice in its left arm, once in the left thigh, twice in the right thigh, and once in the right side of its neck. Groaning, the kaiju gripped one of the missiles and pulled it out from its torso, before setting about dislodging the others. Its open wounds didn’t gush blood, but they did bleed and didn’t immediately repair. The formerly glowing spines started to flicker off and on, noticeably dimming as time went on.
“The ANEB it’s... working,” Yuji muttered breathlessly.
“We loaded those missiles with over 100 times the amount of antinuclear bacteria it took to incapacitate the last Godzilla; which took several days to start reacting to it,” Katagiri hummed as he crossed his arms, “Expecting even just ten percent of the payload to get to the bloodstream, we sought an immediate effect. It’ll have to choose between staying and fighting for however long it can before running out of power, or trying to retreat to the ocean and healing while never having enough energy to restore itself.”
Yuji frowned at the sight of something so frightening and yet awe-inspiring reacting to their tools. A creature much like this one took his wife and so many others away. It inspired such paranoia in C.C.I. that Katagiri made it his life’s work to see anything bigger than a blue whale eradicated for the preservation of human dominion on this planet, changing a man he once called friend.
And yet it was also possibly the same being his daughter once curled up against to sleep while listening to ‘A Beautiful Dreamer’.
Yuji hung his head as Aso gave the command the second salvo to fire. By the end of the day the world might have gone back to normal. If not killed, the legend from Odo Island might be at last conquered. Conquered like every other force of nature mankind had gone up against.
He could only hope it wasn’t actually Junior shrieking at them from the pain they caused it. At the sound of the roaring, Yuji couldn’t bear to watch anymore.
“Why couldn’t you just stay in the ocean…” Yuji whispered to himself, still not knowing why Godzilla had chosen this spot to appear again.
Then the reverberating boom of explosions following the launch of the second full metal salvo caused his eyes to burst back open.
“What?!” Commander Aso barked as the full metal missiles, with much larger propulsion plumes than the last salvo, went rocketing into Godzilla with a very obvious bursts of light and flame on impact as they sought to stab in and explode.
These fully armed missiles, ones he had been promised would not be there, dug in deeper before detonating, causing the monster to shriek in pain as it stumbled back and tried to shield its face with an arm.
Yuji’s eyes dilated with shock and stupor as other artillery platforms and missile launchers joined in the raining fire. Godzilla roared aloud, visibly bleeding from the massive exploding spears being hurled into it. They weren’t causing critical damage or mortally wounding the kaiju, but they were very visibly harming it. Yuji was horrified, Aso was shocked, Katagiri was silent. At first Mitsuo might have almost hoped to have smiled at seeing the object of his nightmares visibly writhing in pain, hoping this horrific trial for humanity might finally be over, but confusion was all too evident on his visage. Confusion, and even some degree of shame.
The antinuclear bacteria was sapping the monster’s energy, ability to heal, and durability. A compromised epidermis was leaving it more vulnerable to oncoming attack. Some of the fears that might have gripped G-Force and C.C.I’s staff before was ebbing away with bravado. Born from pride in their strength of arms and audacity to use them with intent. Intent to kill a nightmare before could even begin.
Courage led to more explosions, artillery, and missiles being fired upon Godzilla. More fire upon the creature led it to be cloaked in a near constant stream of explosions and smoke. That cover meant no one could see the flare of blue light before a massive foot stomped onto the bottom of the harbor. The stomp unleashed a shockwave into both the ground and any particle of ocean touching the saurian.
Blinding blue light blotted out any other sense of vision for a split second, the ground shook like an earthquake of not inconsiderable magnitude had just gone off, and the sea came roaring onto the land in the manner not unlike a tsunami several meters tall. Several streets were flash flooded and numerous artillery batteries rolled over onto their sides or were inhibited by loose power lines and debris being violently thrown into them by the waves. The reverberating echoes from the explosive nuclear pulse lasted the longest.
Yuji, Aso, and Katagiri; whom had covered their eyes with their arms to shield their orbs from the massive emission of light, slowly uncovered their faces with gobsmacked expressions. Those expressions did not fade when their eyes readjusted. There was no more smoke, it had all been blasted away by the shockwave, meaning there was nothing to hide Godzilla from sight. The saurian huffed and groaned while slowly standing back up to its full height. The full metal missiles that had been lodged in it had melted, still blazing hot molten metal streaming down its hide and raining down into the ocean to leave behind stab wounds in their wake.
Wounds that were rapidly getting smaller as a dim glow on the dorsal spines of the titan was getting brighter.
“It’s healing,” Aso gasped, “Its power… The ANEB…”
“Was made to survive internal temperatures of just under a thousand degrees Celsius!” Katagiri muttered while still flabbergasted, “997’C, I did the testing myself… And to fry the bacteria instantly…”
“It would need to be even hotter,” Commander Aso whispered between huffing breaths, “Approaching the temperatures that killed the last Godzilla… It has far surpassed its predecessor…”
The commander’s mind was working at a mile a minute, trying to consider what he should tell the shocked battalions to do. Try the plan again? It seemed to be working before the onslaught of those fully armed missiles provoked it! But how did those things even get here? He gave strict orders before they deployed to the island on what the armament was supposed to be. Yes, he hadn’t inspected every single missile personally, but he had given the order with instantaneous digital messaging to ensure every single subcommander and battalion leader got the message for inspections he couldn’t schedule himself. If one of them went behind his back he would rip them asunder with his bare hands, their disobedience might have foiled this entire operation and-!
The familiar roar of extremely large jet engines echoed down from high above, inciting a groaning gurgle from Godzilla as he tilted his head up to look at an object rapidly approaching all the way from Tokyo.
“No…” Commander Aso gasped under his exasperated breath, “They... Not that-“
Yuji didn’t hear the commander’s words as he lost it, he grabbed the Commander of G-Force by the collar despite the multiple guns now trained on him.
“What have you done?! We had a deal!” he yelled out over the growing sound of loud engines.
“I- didn’t- I” Aso wasn’t looking at him, instead staring at the sky in disbelief.
“Fully armed Full Metal Missiles, constant artillery barrages and now this?! This was not our containment plan, this is an attempt at execution!” Dr. Shinoda roared.
Commander Aso got control of himself again, yelling just as much at the soldiers moving to tackle or shoot the enraged doctor as he himself was at getting yelled at, putting a hand on Yuji’s arm and holding up the other to his subordinates least they end up shooting the scientist.
“Stand down! All of you stand down! Shinoda, I didn’t order this!”
“Then explain that!” Shinoda screamed as the Super-X3 flew overhead and discharged multiple cadmium cryo-missiles from the compartment that emerged from its hull.
=================
Half an hour earlier, alarms blared in one of G-Force’s largest hangers had sprung to life with motion. The order to scramble, coming straight from the highest of command itself, had been taken very seriously despite the sudden nature of it. A nature that couldn’t have been more sudden to Captain Sho Kuroki. A tall man with short cropped hair and a clean-shaven face, he was among some of the youngest in history of the JSDF to be recognized for the skill level he was at back in 1989. Not even a week back from an officer exchange with the United States Air Force and he was put in charge of the Super-X2 operation, remote piloting the craft himself. Six years later there was no remoteness involved when CCI asked him to pilot the Super-X3. With no mecha able to be created in such a short timeframe, budget concerns, and a myriad of other problems, the most advanced attack plane ever created was the only thing that could be mounted in defense against an out-of-control Burning Godzilla.
Knowing what was at stake, Sho volunteered even before Katagiri could finish stating he needed the best for what they had. Captain Kuroki, ace pilot he was, made sure he got the best.
Which made him all the more concerned when Aso issued the order to scramble the greatest aircraft ever made so suddenly and to make for the Amami Islands as fast as possible. Sho was an observant man, one didn’t even make it their flight school without it, and he knew that either something very fishy or something very serious was going on. That or both. It was a good thing the Super-X3 was constantly in a state of readiness these past few days especially.
Thrusters ignited to carry the massive attack craft, almost 40 meters in length, high into the air. Almost resembling a very large, heavily armored cargo plane, the dark green hue of the airship was only broken by the visor-like yellow cockpit. Sealing covers enclosed over the numerous freezing masers and the cryo-missile launchers enclosed into the internals of the ship to increase aerodynamics. Kuroki shifted on propulsion to the maximum, the juggernaut of a flying battleship speeding along at just under Mach 2. At this pace it would take them about 30 minutes to reach the islands.
“Please let there be people still alive when we get there,” Sho mumbled to him as he yet again flew into the fray.
=================
The sparking white-tipped rockets spiraled through the air before impacting Godzilla’s flank, erupting in a geyser of mist that soon solidified into a sizable chunk of ice almost encasing the entirety of the creature's right arm. Godzilla bellowed in surprise, looking at the limb in a confused manner before visibly tensing. Joints shifted and muscles bulged before the arm exploded out of the shattering mass of ice it had been engulfed in. The Super-X3 nimbly banked around the perimeter of the valley that housed the harbor, swooping back in for another assault. The joined panels that vaguely resembled a bird’s beak at the nose split open to reveal the four paneled hyper-cryomaser, which sparked to life. Frigid white beans fired out in barrages, looking almost like lightning bolts as they rapidly reduced the temperature of anything they contacted. Swaths of the harbor were flash frozen, and frost was beginning to build up across Godzilla’s body just as fast as the beast broke out of it.
A hand was put on Yuji’s shoulder, stilling his pulse even as it previously raced.
“Yuji, he had nothing to do with this.”
Yuji looked to Katagiri and didn’t see the smug visage he’d come to associate with that name. In fact, the rather confused but stoic face of Mitsuo was almost proof in itself that he didn’t have a part in this either.
“There is much more going on here than we would think.”
A breath came to lungs that hadn’t realized they had been holding it, expelling stale air and taking in a cold, icy gale that snapped the senses as they burrowed into his body through his airway.
“This operation is a failure and needs to be called off.”
Yuji’s brow lowered somewhat as he took his hands off Commander Aso’s suit, “I’d thought you’d want your new missiles and the Super-X3 to slay the dragon…”
“In an ideal situation I would,” Mitsuo shrugged as he turned to observe the battle.
“In a prime situation with more backup, they might be enough,” he posited with a frown, “But over half the missiles were already expended as well as all of the antinuclear bacteria, that proved to be a bust on its own. Right now we’re needlessly picking a fight and someone’s going to get killed.”
Commander Aso nodded, “On that we can agree. This Godzilla is much stronger than the last one, and isn’t suffering power inconsistencies symptomatic of a meltdown. The Super-X3 is no machine to be trifled with, but there are thousands of personnel on this island who are in harm’s way, personnel I’m responsible for. I’m not prepared to wager their lives for a battle I did not call for or plan.”
The old commander looked to his subordinates and nearly snarled, “Send word down the wire, everyone is to evacuate immediately. Do not fire upon Godzilla again! Repeat. DO. NOT. FIRE. UPON. GODZILLA. If someone does and threatens the lives of others, tell them I’ll court-martial them myself! Initiate the fallback procedures and someone get me in contact with Captain Kuroki!”
Captain Kuroki was doing a very commendable job for the task put in front of him. He was skillfully maneuvering, looping, and rolling about in a ship multiple times larger than any fighter jet and having a near equal evasive maneuvering. The Super-X3 rocketed forward, so close to the water it kicked up a large wake behind it as loose ice and seaspray was thrown about. Several more cadmium missiles fired free from the rotating turrets and crashed into Godzilla’s abdominal region, further freezing the monster in place up to its hips. He saw how the shore artillery units and launchers were pulling back, and so he was forced to engage in close quarters combat much quicker and much closer than he ever wished to. He had to keep the monster focused on him, buy time for the smaller units to get out of the harm’s way.
The message from Commander Aso, live updates fed through the computer systems, still kept flashing across the screen.
“Terminate Target G, all weapons enabled.”
Not a single word about the other battalions falling back. Nor any authorization for ‘danger close’ protocols to give approval for any means necessary for success regardless of who might get caught in the crossfire. It was fishier than a seafood market, so the ace sought to bend the command slightly until he knew the full situation. He called back to one of the onboard systems engineers.
“Try and reach out to Subcommander Pentecost for clarification!” Sho Kuroki barked.
“But, we already have orders from Commander Aso,” the engineer in the flight uniform noted as she tilted her head from her work station.
“Yes, and I’m the one in charge of this vessel and I’m giving an order to go and check for orders!” Kuroki fired back before grimacing, “Hang on!”
There was barely a second of preparation before the super aircraft suddenly banked on to one of its sides and spun. Godzilla’s tail had come bursting out of the frozen harbor and swung widely, throwing up entire icebergs of debris as it slashed through the air. The Super-X3, under Kuroki’s direction, skillfully dodged getting its body clipped or clubbed by the extremity, but there was no time to dodge the deceptively quick blow entirely. A large hunk of ice stuck to the underside of the tail smashed into the missile battery on the dorsum of the craft, violently tearing it off with a metallic crunch. The Super-X3 remained airborne even while trailing smoke.
“I think we lost something, report!” Kuroki yelled out as he spun the craft about to bank in again, not wanting to lose the monster’s attention for a moment.
“Cadmium missile launcher is completely offline, I think we left it in the harbor back there,” his copilot chimed in while checking out some other systems, “Light damage to the left secondary thrusters, compensating so we don’t lose stability but it will slow us down somewhat.”
“With the hull compromised and us moving slower, we’re dead meat if that thing’s heat ray hits us!” The weapons operator called out from behind them.
Kuroki’s face stilled as an observation hit him upon looking at Godzilla. The creature was definitely looking at them and had its full attention upon them while smashing its way out of the ice that had built up around it. The dorsal plates on his back were radiating blue and clear warning of a nuclear energy build up, and yet there was no ensuing burst of irradiated plasma coming their way.
Not at them at least. Godzilla was approaching and facing Mount Yuwan, directly towards the command post while about to let loose his irradiated flames. Captain Kuroki’s eyes dilated upon realizing what was happening. Godzilla was about to let loose facing the same direction as most of the communication equipment and G-Force’s highest of command. Did it somehow know who was down there? Was it trying to cut the head off the proverbial snake? Fire upon the inconspicuous mass of tents instead of the heavily armed or armored aircraft? He didn’t know and he didn’t want to think about it.
All he wanted to think of was how to stop it.
Captain Kuroki zoned everything out, the roar of the engines, the voice coming over his intercoms, the shouting behind him. Everything to fully bond himself to the machine he flew. The banking maneuver required split-second precision, cutting off the engines at just the right moment to swing around and redirect which way they were facing with very carefully executed ignition of the forward and rear thrusters at just the right capacity. The jaw-dropping stunt turned the Super-X3 around on a dime almost like it was drifting on the air in the same way a NASCAR driver might spin about on the green. Fragments of milliseconds were perceptible as the super ship turned around and directly faced Godzilla. Kuroki’s finger squeezed the primed triggers on the flight controls, bypassing the weapon specialists’ operations for the main cryomasers.
In the splintered pieces of a second, Kuroki registered that Godzilla’s eyes widened as they met his through the visor windshield. The glow in the reptile’s throat died down and it started tilting its head away from directly facing the aircraft barreling straight at it. Kuroki sensed something wasn’t right but he was too late, the cryomasers already fired and smashed into Godzilla’s face. The leviathan bellowed in surprise while stumbling backwards, the entirety of its neck and half its face engulfed in expanding ice that threatened to go down its throat. When the glacial burst started to do just that, the building glow when the reptilian’s throat instantly returned. Kuroki banked hard to avoid the blast, only able to keep it from hitting the main hull. The energy-scattering diamond armor, the same as used on Mechagodzilla, dissipated most of the blast. The original Super-X pioneered the armor and it withstood about half a dozen direct hits from the second Godzilla during the 1984 attack. The Super-X2 managed to double that five years later before finally being destroyed. The Super-X3 nearly had its wing blasted off from a glancing hit, the wing mounted secondary cryomaser instantly vaporized as metal and synthetic diamond warped and melted while trying to dissipate the energy.
But that wasn’t all Kuroki registered as the deafening caused by his hyperfocus started to reside. It was dark up above the canopy of the Super-X3, and yet it was the middle of the day. The middle of the day, and it was raining something. Something he only glimpsed as it bashed against the windshield and scuffed it before bouncing off the airship as the Super-X3 raced away. They’d just been hit by a… boulder?!
Kuroki scratched his face in dumbstruck surprise while flying away to get a distance, the yelling of his crew and his earpiece becoming audible again.
“Secondary craft in the air! Over 100 meters long!”
“It came off the mountain behind us in a second!”
“Godzilla’s firing at it!”
“Captain, Pentecost reports a stand-down order!”
And of course, the roaring in his earpiece by Commander Aso.
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING HERE, CAPTAIN?!”
“I… I…” Captain Kuroki was honestly at a loss for words, just seeing the wind pass by the front shield, “I was... given orders to scramble.”
“On whose authority?!” Aso snarled.
“Yours, sir…” Kuroki swallowed before robotically spitting out what he was told, “Authorization to scramble DAG-MBS-SX3 Type 95. 11873962604-“
“Enough! I know it and the other 25 digits!” Aso barked before audibly shifting in a way Kuroki knew he was rubbing at his head, “You were given valid authorization Captain, that was my code to scramble and it no doubt gave valid credentials, but it was not given by me… However, I have a feeling we might be thankful you arrived yet, despite this operation going AWOL.”
“What.. is it.. Sir? Commander?”
Commander Aso looked at the giant floating mass of... Something. It looked like a combination of boulders and coral reef concretion. Levitating in the air with no propulsion even as Godzilla fired upon its belly with conviction blazing in the monster’s eyes.
“Do not engage unless the evacuating personnel are threatened, keep about the battlefield until we figure something out.”
“Affirmative commander…” Sho Kuroki muttered as he sat back in his seat, robotically turning the Super-X3 around to look upon the confrontation with his own eyes, “Affirmative.”
The megalith, for that’s the only thing that could adequately describe it, rotated around under the onslaught of the still half-frozen Godzilla’s attack before the beam ebbed away. Freshly charred rubble rained down from its surface, revealing smooth metallic coating on what now was facing the sun. A low humming coming off the structure was perceptible and getting louder; in tandem with the revealed patches of metal starting to glow under the bright light of the sun. The megalith shook and vibrated, shuddering and cracking more and more of the stony concretion that had built up upon it for tens of thousands of years. Godzilla roared angrily, jerking about to smash his way out of more ice that shattered into thousands of pieces with every movement.
The consciousness within the megalith knew full well the power of this beast. After it had so doggedly menaced them and their drones at sea when it drove the latter off the Eiko-Ryu and foiled attempts at adding to their biomass with the Lucky Dragon N.13. That forced it to use the largest surviving drone in the form of one of the native marine mammals to spirit the other extensions to shore on its own, having to sacrifice that precious biomass at the cliffside to distract the giant. Had the consciousness tried to manipulate the power of the radioactive beast into freeing more of their rocky shell with its wrath while this creature was fighting fresh, it would’ve been too risky a gambit and would have likely resulted in demise.
But the local wildlife, the unchanging tumors that saw themselves as sapient, proved useful to this end. Not only in finding out more about this creature which attacked them so brazenly, but in their limited ability to commune. The consciousness pitied them, the tumors that called themselves human. Each one was too segregated from the other, too specialized. It meant making the individual do as the collective wished was as simple as manipulating the right neurons. Evoke the right emotion, be it fear of this creature whose kind had so scarred their own, invoke the facsimile of unity a chain of command had; and they operated like falling dominoes set to a specific pattern.
They shared information instantaneously, for they were all and all was them. As it had been for thousands of genomes, thousands of acquired bio masses, and thousands of years. They were Millennian, and they had become most interested in this planet.
The rocky shell shattered and fell away, revealing a smooth, almost too smooth, sweeping surface. In outline it could be most easily compared to some kind of stingray without a tail, but it truly looked like nothing of this world. To be expected, all things considered. The glossy shape of the unknown, the UFO, glimmered with waves of energy washing over its surface and into an opened port located on the right flank. Godzilla started to charge up his beam of power and take aim, but the solar-charged UFO was quicker.
Blasting free the debris still lodged inside the barrel, the UFO unleashed a swirling vortex of golden energy that crashed into the kaiju. Godzilla roared out in pain, knocked off its feet and blasted backward with seemingly no halting to its momentum. The UFO’s ray, a variety of kinetic gravity cannon, continued to fire for multiple seconds on end, energy absorbed from the sun instantly dumped into the blast even as it stretched to be hundreds of meters long.
Godzilla was hurtled backwards, even as its own beam fired off and grazed the side of the UFO before missing wildly and shooting off into the sky. The kaiju was smashed through one of the outlying peninsulas at the end of the harbor, throwing dirt, sand, trees, and pavement skyward. The UFO raised upwards to adjust the angle of fire and continued to launch the stream of energy at a sharper angle downwards. It didn’t stop firing for half a minute, Godzilla firmly blasted into the ocean.
The glimmering UFO noticeably dimmed, and even without being aware of how its systems worked one could get the sense it was drastically weakened from an all-or-nothing attack. The question as to success was given when Godzilla didn’t surface and red liquid started to seep up onto shore.
A few people laughed if only in exhilaration of still being alive, a few people cried for the same reasons, but most of Amami Ōshima were silent. Many looked at the UFO with confusion. Yuji Shinoda looked at the inside of his hands as they got closer and closer to his face. He held his head and prayed for the first time in years, despite a doubter like him not even knowing it. And he kept praying even as his body moved on autopilot for the rest of the next few hours.
He pleaded to nothing that the world would still make sense soon; as the UFO hung overhead while he made his way to the shores of the bay as the evacuation was ordered.
He pleaded that this Godzilla wasn’t who he thought it was once; as he secretly donned a hazard suit and secretly made his way to the waters of the bay. The clean-up crews would be here soon, even with G-Force and the unknown UFO pulling out. International law was very clear, and no one wanted to risk another Biollante. All G-Cells were to be destroyed. All the more reason the only thing that slowed Shinoda down was the wariness to not get spotted, as he fished out a small piece of tissue and scales to place it inside the sealed container the Brodys had given him.
He begged that this Godzilla was just that now, just a beast of destruction and not that he had been something, someone, else he knew closely once. In the privacy of a transport ship, Yuji cornered a man he once called friend. For someone who'd just seen Godzilla bleed, Mitsuo Katagiri didn't cut a victorious visage as he watched the seas outside with his arms tucked behind his back and fascinated together.
"You want something, Shinoda," he noted curtly at the man stalking up to him with a downcast expression, trying to remain as monotone as possible.
"What was mine, I need it back," Shinoda retorted bluntly.
"The Kyoto studies," Katagiri stiffened, "Are C.C.I. property."
"And you are C.C.I." Shinoda whispered, not moving from where he lurked in the shadows.
"And what gives you the right to demand it from me when you abandoned it?"
He closed his eyes and bowed his head, "Mitsuo..."
He groped for words. Appeals to the past, appeals to whom they'd lost, appeals for human decency. He was stopped and almost seemed like he wanted to reach out, but held himself composed and firm. Still, it had been years since he saw Mitsuo frown like that. Not since the 1980s.
"I don't want to know what it's for, I just want you to know this," Mitsuo sighed as he rubbed at his temple, "... I had nothing to do with this."
The 'this' was apparent by the low hum of the hovering Super-X3 audible outside as it passed the transport ships. The papers and data from over half a decade ago, from Kyoto, was emailed to Shinoda's acquisition within the hour's end.
Hours later, in the mobile caravan going back to G-Force's headquarters in Tokyo, the comparison of the tissue from the G-Cells he'd illegally collected against his old data from Kyoto was finished. The room was dark, the sole light coming from his computer screen. There wasn't enough time or equipment to do a full DNA test, and the sample was too radioactive to securely do that. But he knew G-Cells better than almost anyone on the planet. He knew the intricacies of the tissue formation, the seeming fingerprints on the way the scales aligned or formed from the dermis to epidermis. Yuji knew what Junior's scale and tissue forms looked like, totally unique to himself and different from his adoptive father. And the algorithms to match up the measurements piece by piece had finished.
When they matched, Dr. Yuji Shinoda prayed, and yet didn't know it, for forgiveness if his other prayers weren’t met.
A beautiful dreamer chimed through his mind as he imagined a mass sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Not direly wounded or dying, as beliefs about the immortality of a sea kami were beginning to trickle into his mind from decades back on his home island; but swimming off hurt, but enraged. Yuji was as afraid as he was ashamed.
He didn't see the small form standing in the window, watching quietly under her helmet as she approached to gain entrance.
Above the G-Force caravan, under surveillance, the Millennian craft studied what the good doctor did to learn more of the foe they knew was not yet slain.
Within Tokyo and other nearby cities, drones crawled, flew, and infiltrated through the storm drains, pipes, alleys, and underbelly of Japan.
And above Odo Island, thunder rolled and lightning struct an ancient alter above a storming sea.
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Infant Island
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Within the depths of an extinct volcano, upon a distant isle so few had ever tread, vibrant, compound eyes flickered with awareness to the realm current and away from communion with the planet itself. The mana stream was but a pathetic trickle of what it once had been, the minuscule remnants of it being rediscovered by mankind as the magnetic fields that they glimpsed on the extreme north and south regions near the poles. But to one such as she, the connections within the world could still be felt enough to detect and sense far and wide. Enough to figure out what had happened in the Amami Islands.
She’d wanted to have hope after Belvera’s message, but it seems fate had dealt a poor hand.
Gigantic masses shifted, dust and accumulated leaves blown into the caldera ruffling under the silvery moonlight to reveal vibrant patterns of iridescent scales. The twin grandeurs, a pair of enormous insect wings, tried to raise only to stiffen before weakly slumping. Uncovered in their motion, large holes, teeth marks, and noticeable burns marred the wings’ beauty. Mothra Lea crooned, her fluffy antennae twitching as they lowered back down. The battle with Grand King Ghidorah not long ago might have earned her an ally, but it had cost her much when she took drastic action.
Neither she nor her most unlikely of compatriots had the strength to kill or mortally wound the King of Terror. It was only by a desperate gambit that used almost every scrap of mana she and the Elias possessed that they were able to wound the dragon enough to ward him off. But gambits had consequences, some that took time to mend.
Lea could sense a pair flocking to her aid, no doubt roused by her attempt to get airborne once again upon exiting her restorative coma. But she was a stubborn Guardian, and where wings failed, an attempt was made with legs. But worn claws and cracked chitin faltered upon lifting their bearer off of her resting place. The Mothra chirped in disagreements upon circumstance even as two lights of red and blue respectively flew up to her atop a fairy in her likeness.
Two of the three were present, one was far away. It was the latter which helped clue her in to the situation and let the heiress to a lineage so ancient know what was going on.
Moll and Lora looked to Lea as the latter looked to the starry sky high above, her thoughts about one deep beneath the sea communicated to the chosen shobijin near and far.
What a strange turn of fate this was? That her mother and father were awakened in modern times in which to resume their ancient dispute, only to be interrupted by a titan unfamiliar? A titan that still could inflict nightmares second only to extinction itself whenever she recalled her patriarch’s killer. And yet, it was the very heir to that titan’s throne that she had to put her faith in to carry out a task she was not yet recuperated enough to perform.
If fate was such a thing, maybe it was cutting her family some measure of a break by allotting her a powerful ally in this trying age? Or maybe it was fitting that as a new era was beginning to dawn, the next in line for both the Guardian of Mortals and King of the Monsters which had so previously quarreled were so different from their parents.
Under the silvery beams of the moon that now hovered directly over Infant Island’s caldera, Mothra Lea allowed Moll and Lora’s soothing melody, so enchanted by ancient magic, to wash over her. Wounds started to heal very gradually as they had been before, as Lea allowed the dreaming and connectivity to the world to return to her. As she felt the restoration of her tether to so many, she was keen to focus upon two wounded souls. One at the bottom of the ocean, one across said ocean. Both, tethered together.
Before unconsciousness took her, she gave her plea to Moll, Lora, and Belvera.
Help them. Both of them.
PART 8 - 12/27/2021
Now with the players to the board, the game can really begin. For Commander Aso was wrong when he declared the new millennium would be the new era for humanity's sole dominion. Godzilla's return, was only the beginning...
Only now commenting but I'm really enjoying this so far!
I'll wait until all the parts are out before I give my full thoughts, great work Tarb!
DAMN. What a way to conclude the first half of this story!
Outstanding work, Tarb, just amazing stuff.
Holy Fuck Bro this was intense, once Junior gets back up after the Millennian’s dirty move he’s going to be Pissed
I know you don’t like these questions and I’m not trying to rush you but since these chapters are coming quicker when will the second arc start?
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Well keep in mind I intend to try and finish or make big strides into the next Bridge chapter before resuming this in a few weeks or so. So actually if you got thoughts, I'd like to hear em now as it can give guidance on arc 2.
This was a solid conclusion to Arc 1 of New Era. Great job at establishing the stakes between Junior & the Millenians with the military scene. And Mothra's current state.
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Well in that case I really like how you tied the Heisei era stuff and Godzilla 2000 together, and I find it kinda funny how everyone, even Io is a little afraid how Junior will act considering how for the longest time he had similar thoughts up until recently and the thought that he could accidentally crush someone terrified him.
The only thing I can think of at the moment that could be improved, Is that maybe certain things like Godzilla's "conflict" with G-Force could have been more detailed but that could just be me. I would like see Junior's perspective at some point though, maybe in the last chapter?
I'll try to think of more but that's all I got right now. I'm excited to see the next chapter for The Bridge whenever you're ready.
Finished the chapter. It was a worthy end of for Arc 1 of 2. Loved the strategies that humans thought to combat Junior as they were very well thought of and only failed because Junior was more powerful than his father. Likewise, I love how the Millennians were able to covertly manipulated the military to try and kill Junior despite Aso’s orders and the appearance of Mothra Lea hints the story will become more Kaiju heavy on the second arc.
New Era (Part 1):
It’s easy to tell that this story comes from a place of love for Godzilla 2000, but as someone who views that film as strictly average, this retelling placed in the Bridge’s continuity blows it out of the water in every way.
That said, calling this a Bridge story feels a bit off as, aside form the Anime Trilogy special, this one feels nothing like it’s surrounding brethren. Some stuff, namely the character work, action writing and humor, is up to the same level of quality I’d expect from the Bridge, but there’s one key factor that sets in apart, and, so far, is what sticks in the mind the most upon reading it.
The tone.
Simply put, New Era does a fantastic job filling every scene with a sense of dread, even if it’s just from context. From flashbacks to the 1984 attacks and the heartbreaking long term effects for Yugi, to Godzilla’s unknown to the characters nature, and CCI and the G-Force’s desperation to reclaim the earth for humanity, it all paints a vivid picture of a world that’s about to turn a new page in its history books and the unknowns have everyone on edge...and that’s before the frankly disturbing Millenian enter the picture.
I’m saving character analysis for the full review after part 2 comes out, but the main six players, oun absolutely intended, are all excellent so far. Yugi embodies the main human conflict of the story best, with his understandable fears of the past Godzilla mixed with his hopes for a better future with the new. Aso and Katagiri to a much greater extent represent the misplaced hope that humanity can “reclaim” the Earth, while Io and the later arriving Belvera provide a view of a future with the kaiju as allies. Fittingly, these two also provide the brightest hope spots with Io’s humor and gentle flashback’s to her and Junior’s childhoods, and Belvera being the first to actively fight the villains off directly. And then there’s Yuki, who’s a very fun character and has great chemistry with both Yugi and Io, but she stands out for being just good as opposed to the excellence of the others.
I do have to single out Katagiri for being a very refreshingly well done sympathetic character, largely because the story doesn't try to push him as such. It simply lets his very human strengths and failings be on display and the tragedy is that the latter twists the former.
As for failings, well as mentioned Yuki doesn't quite match up to the other characters yet, Belvera’s appearance is right out of nowhere if you aren’t fairly current on the Bridge, and one otherwise excellent horror scene is unintentionally scuttled somewhat by a victim resembling a pop culture reference a little too much, even if I know it was unintentional.
Otherwise, some of your best work, can’t wait for part 2!
Glad Belvera saved Io before she really injured herself. Clever of the Millennians to trick those pilots into attacking Junior.
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A splendid review my friend, my gratitude for the efforts and I'm honored to entertain my friends. Godzilla 2000 is, as you presumed, near and dear to me; but I knew going in the best way to treat it was like a foundation or scale model. Like how one might use the material, physics, and configuration of a small house to build a larger one. Hence why everything seems to be cranked up, which on film would make for debatable pace, but in literary form it's a mass of details to show off. In the film the military officers are barely in focus, now we get a lot of deep thoughts from the likes of Commander Aso. In the film, Yuki coming to integrate with the GPN is there, but only a small plot; whereas here she's put to the role of the 'normal' one set to help fix what's breaking. And of course in the film the threat the Millennian pose is real, but not fully shown; which is why they got a massively beefed up presence.
Yep, Belvera sticks out like a fantasy elf who just walked into a Star Trek episodes (not a Vulcan), but I suppose that's a bit to be expected. I'd suppose if this was adapted to film and was the true Godzilla 2000 film, she'd be absent to keep the tone more grounded as a science fiction with a giant monster can get. She was an addition made after the principle outlinings but ironically enough, for a former antagonist and misanthrope, she was actually put in for levity as well as continuity. With how amped up the Millennian threat got, having G-Force unknowingly duped by them as the aliens ravage citizens and plot their full return, it honestly risked being a bit too dour in tone; especially when compounded by the familial drama with the Shinodas.
So Belvera was brought in to, along with her sisters (hint hint for arc 2) be a force that instantly knows something's very wrong and Godzilla is most certainly not to blame. But her being whom she is, she likely wouldn't be one to trust G-Force and blab to them as soon as possible, given both her prior views on humanity and them unknowingly digging themselves into a deeper hole even with good intentions.
But you are right when you say tonally, this is a very different beast than Bridge. In this, Junior is more like an animal. I don't mean that in a way he's acting more animalistic, but rather he's perceived like one would perceive and try to read a smart animal. Aside from domestic pets and our fellow primates, many other animals just don't 'speak' the same body language we do. Watching a tiger with a seemingly blank expression, one might not be able to see it's actually studying something to pounce upon, happy, sleepy, or about to flee. It's why they can seem so unpredictable. Add on Godzilla's non-mammalian nature (as birds and reptiles are infamously less expressive) and the fact nobody can get close enough to just ask him what's he's doing (or in the case of anyone by Io, actually be willing to try), and everyone is left in the dark as to what's going through his head. Whereas in Bridge, I just have him say so or show his thoughts.
Add in I deliberately didn't show scenes following Junior's perspective, and it makes it more understandable that people don't know what he's got on his mind. Of course we know Junior is benevolent and that he's just trying to help; this is a case nurture bested nature, but that plays into the dramatic irony of it all. It's actually an idea sprung from the movie itself, with the line, "There's only one thing on Godzilla's mind right now" as the aforementioned kaiju bears down on the UFO.
Glad to know even the weakest of the human cast landed well. I'd say of all I find Aso a surprisingly fun character to write for. There's always the cliche generals in sci-fi films whom are gung-ho "I'mma shoot it till it's dead and/or make it a weapon!", and I always found him a refreshing, if underused aversion of the tropes in the Heisei Saga. We never saw much of him, but he seemed to be a reasonable and honorable man of command, if one determined to see the end of the monsters whom were a plague upon his home nation. So using him as a man haunted by his past trials and the burden of command was very engaging. Essentially, I found he was best used as the General equivalent to the trope of the old ronin who's seeking one last job to find some peace. And having his, Katagiri, and the Shinodas all tied back to the attack of 1984 makes New Era very much a spiritual sequel to that. Not only by having this be the first big arrival of the next Godzilla, but also tonally and echoing the consequences of 1984.
A comparison once made between myself and my collaborators is New Era is to Godzilla Returns what Captain America: Winter Soldier was to First Avenger. Yes, other films took place chronologically between them and there are after-effects of said films; but in terms of one being the direct echo of the other; they tie together closely.
This was a splendid amount of fun to write and here's hoping it keep the flow and quality into Arc 2.
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Can't have our female lead getting too hurt, I'm no sadist! XD
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Oh trust, the kaiju action has only begun. While the focus will be on Godzilla, Arc 2 is much more action heavy.
Pretty clever of those Milleneians to trick the Super X-3 crew into thinking they were ordered to attack Junior. Can't wait to see what other tricks they'll pull off in the mean time.
A nice place to end on a middle note. I gotta say, this was ride to read. For someone, like myself, who thought that the 2000 movie was okay, this really got me interested with its characters, action and motivations till the end of this arc, and curious what more to come.
Nice character touch to show Belvera is not a Nominal Hero.
A good scene in conveying how much stronger Junior is than Senior by literally powering through one of Senior’s weaknesses.
I can’t help but find this darkly amusing.
Aso: Their orders are to not fire upon Godzilla, understood?
Orga: Okay!
Kuroki: What are my orders?
Orga: Shoot at him with everything you got. KILL THIS MOTHERFUCKER!
Literally the plot of this entire rewrite.
Humanity: Exists
Orga: Is that a tumor?
Junior: media.giphy.com/media/MmpoBBmzvNBCM/giphy.gif
For now Orga had become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.
This was a fantastic climax to end the arc on. You did well establishing the threat Orga poses to both Humanity & Junior. And this rewrite has some of your finest character work yet with the cast.
Can’t wait to read Arc 2.
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Aye. Would you believe I actually thought to include her not just for continuity, but levity? Show the villains having opposition from the onset and not successfully hiding/fooling everyone.
Yep, and the key here is the weapons didn't not affect him, but the dosage which woulda been overkil for 1980s Senior barely did anything. It be like trying to knock out an elephant with a handheld slingshot.
Aso: "HOLD YOUR FIRE! DO! NOT! FIRE!"
Orga:
media1.tenor.com/images/8698e567ea0f6fbff1caed670400714f/tenor.gif?itemid=5439188
BWAHAHAHA! AAAAAAaaah I was waiting for someone to make that joke, fitting the lord of memes caught the meme hook.
Resist, I could not!
Splendid to know I can still carry a story well even without my usual perks of showing exactly what's going through the kaiju's heads. I actually did consider a few scenes following Godzilla, but scrapped them as I felt the tone meshed better this way. In a way it's a bit like a combination of Godzilla 2014 meets Gamera the Brave, where a lot of the focus is on the people trying to interact with each other, interacting or reacting off the monster(s), and then trying to figure out what's going on. At least that was where I was shooting. Was a challenge as, after all, whom do we often remember best from each individual G film? The humans or the monster cast?
Alright, so I finally finished reading all the parts and heres what I'll say for every part.
Favorite moments from each part GO sharply inhales
Part 1: The chanting/poem at the end where the trope of "is it magic or is it mundane" comes to play. I love how it gives a sense that Godzilla as a very concept is the embodiment of destruction and thus adds a lot more weight to Juniors Resurrection.
also I still cant listen to beautiful dreamer properly because of you, you monsterOh yeah and fuck Katagiri.
Part 2: A tie between the Millennians first appearance on the Eku Ryu and the interactions between Yuji, Io and Yuki in the beginning. Covering the second part first, its very clear that our main protags of the rewrite have some fantastic charisma with each other. Its always good to see Io again calling people an imbecile and Yuji being a bit of a goof. The Millennians are terrifying and the fact you made them terrifying is great. That's all i'm gonna say about that scene caus it still scares me XD
Part 3: Literally the entire interaction between Io, Yuki and Yuji either in the hospital or in the van. In a lot of kaiju stories I've read its very hard for me to be entertained/connect with the human characters as they feel like a filler episode waiting to get to the good stuff. Here, not only do I care about these characters more so then I ever did when watching Godzilla 2000, but I empathize with what they are going through. Its very nice to see such a wonderful family dynamic between them all. The description of the train scene was also very well done and gave brilliant visuals.
Part 4: Hard to nail a favorite for this one, but I think the interaction between Hina and Aso was very lovely. How they view Godzilla and their discussion on what to do with him/Magic vs Mundane was very fantastic to read.
Oh yeah and fuck Katagiri.
Part 5: Surprise surprise its another tie. This time between the Katagiri and Yuji bar convo and Belvera vs Balkzardan/The Drone. . You know how I keep saying fuck Katagiri? Well...okay he gets off the hook..for now. I do like that he's clearly an asshole, he's at least a sympathetic asshole. Plus I do love how this explores the relationship he and Yuji once had, as it's clear that way back when they were best friends, and I can almost feel how...well how hurt they kinda are from it I guess? But I'm glad it's there. The Millenians are still terrifying and the fight between the drone and Belvera was badass. Definitely was able to put together the Thunderbolt Fantasy inspiration for some of Belveras fighting with a sword+rune usage. I also loved the tip of the hat to Balkzardan, even if it's a thing version of her.
Part 6: You hurt Io in this part and I cannot forgive you for doing so. But Godzilla Junior's first-ever "up from the depths, 30 stories high" moment was pretty cool
Part 7: Yes. That's my answer. To go further in-depth, I love how the Millenians are being able to trick the humans and further their goals with technology, as well as seeing Junior just trying his best not to get any human killed or harmed while he himself is getting hurt. Theres still no doubt in my mind that he's a good boy. I also loved how the chess pieces now being set, Yuji and the GDF have no clue what the hell is going on, Yuji also confirming that the new Godzilla is Junior, and Lea giving her prayer to Io and Junior was also very nice.
Overall thoughts: New Era goes to show that a human-focused point in a kaiju story still holds weight and is still a brilliant method of storytelling in said kaiju story. I love all the characters, the setup of the villains, and how the kaiju action is handled with such scale.
Tl;dr: New Era is great and I want more. 12/10 would read again.
So Tarb will this awesome prequel get a sequel this year by the anniversary of the movie it was based on or by New Years Eve like last year?
I think that as a rewrite, this is really good, and even on its own, it's very good too. Everyone acts intelligently, and even Katagiri, nasty as he is, doesn't just launch into full on maniacal cackling (too much) and his portrayal near the end of this part in particular almost lends him a sympathetic air. By douchebag military characters in media, he's pretty shocking for actually wanting to try the containment plan at first and agreeing without question to withdraw when it becomes clear it's escalating badly. Speaking of the escalation, I do like the military firepower scenes in the sense that I like the Gamera and Michael Bay Transformers military scenes, it feels authentic and isn't just "lol lemme fly my jet right into them at point blank range". So when Godzilla still beats him, he feels even more unstoppable. Also, the Yuri Tachibana stuff is a great little cameo.
My one critique I want to mention is that I feel like Io's been called monotone a few too many times. I feel like at this point, we should kind of just know, and there's no need to reiterate. But this is a minor quibble and I'd be hardpressed to find any real issues I have here.
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Ah splendid. One of my goals of this rewrite was not just to make the core trio more fleshed out and describable than a typical G-Film, but to do much the same for the higher ups at G-Force and CCI. Katagiri in that light is technically still an antagonist, just not a villain in the traditional sense. Much as I enjoyed the actor's occasionally very hammy performance (dude's eyes are huge). Funny you mentioned it as I believe I actually did draw upon the first Heisei Gamera and the third Bayformers film as a reference. It was a balancing act of making the military forces seem competent, but also dignify Godzilla as pretty much unstoppable by their means, only impeded. If he just waded through constant barrages of missile or tankfire and no sells all of it without reacting, the sense of scale I find diminishes. No pointless point-blank firing
Ah, fan of GMK? You'll be seeing more of that in Act 2
Hey criticism is valid, I did overuse some words too much. I'll make a point to keep that in mind for Act 2's writing and I can go back and tweak up the writing here, mix it up and use some other words or descriptors.
I like Belvera seeing Io reacting and ultimately choose to help Io despite her pessimism. And somehow she's bruised by seemingly nothing.
And Junior ignores attack without any sort of counterattack.
Whatever Junior is aiming at, however, humanity doesn't know. However, the ANEB missiles interupt before he could fire.
IT does effect him...but then something that Aso and Yuji did not expect or want. Something has gone wrong. Even Katagiri isn't aware of what is going on or why this is happening. This of course leads to a cascade of misunderstanding and more fire.
Fortunately, Junior has a counter for it in the form of spiking his temp to the point it destroys the ANEB. Exceeding the heat that killed his father, showing he is far, far stronger.
Aso is understandably angry, as whoever did this effectively torpedoed the plan in a way he really doesn't have an answer for.
which is made worse when the Super X-3 shows up.
...And yet orders came from Aso that clearly did not come from him.
I like even Katagiri is shaken by this and extremely confused, unknowing of what could have caused this. Even he can accept this is a fight they have no chance of winning.
Of course there is an obvious issue here: Junior is not fighting back at all.
I also like that Kuroki is smart enough to smell a rat and react to things, and thus calls Pentecost for preperation. The damage the Super-X3 takes is entirely accidental on Junior's part.
And Godzilla doesn't fire on him. They don't know WHERE he's going to aim. Something is very unusual here.
And it's only here that the true wrongness comes: something has arrived.
And then you realize that it came from the direction he was aiming.
We also see just how powerful Junior is and realize he could have destroyed the Super X-3 whenever he wanted to.
The Millennian manage to blast Junior out to sea, but it takes a massive amount of what they have.
I do like Yuji going to that length to see if it's the same Godzilla...but also that Katagiri actually agrees to it.
I like that the Millennians has a much greater influence in this and are a much more direct threat.
Meanwhile, Lea is trying to figure out what the heck is going on here. Too badly hurt to contribute to the present threat and taking time to heal from injurying Ghidorah enough to force him back into space.
I do like the introspection on herself on Junior's present situation...and that she is still able to give a good bit of Divine Intervention through her heralds.
Overall, really cool chapter, help's establish the threat and show how dangerous the Millennian are.
Another fantastic chapter. I do really like how it seems the aliens seem to be understanding humanity in their own way. Which is terrifying given that they seem to be using our very nature, and the circumstances, to their own benefit. They already know and fear Junior to an extent. He's an unknown they don't know how to properly counter. So using the humans as an 'ally' to take down Junior makes sense and really sells the message. That people will look to anything that might defeat what scares them, even if they needn't be afraid of it in the first place. So I like the theme.
I do also like Belvera aiding little Io. It was a nice touch and makes Belvera that much more likable. I really love what you're doing with the character. Then again, with how Destroyah is, maybe I just like you're take on gruff (hot) tough chicks with a heart of gold. Also a good Mothra cameo was great to read. Loved this.