Godzilla 2000: New Era, PART 15 · 3:32am Feb 1st, 2022
PART 14
Proofed by Lance-Omikron
Hina and illustrations by FallenAngel5414
Ami by EvoWizard
Additional illustrations by LordShrekzilla and Zeroviks
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Io Shinoda still hadn’t woken up. She’d passed out shortly after using Godzilla’s blood to kill the Millennian drone that had nearly killed her and several other people, right as the ambulances and emergency responders arrived.
She lay on a glass domed medical stretcher, no longer bloodstained as she was cleaned and garbed in a sterile gown. The only noise emitted was the steady beep of the heart rate monitor hooked up to her hand, which struck a note every time the black veins across her bruised face swelled. A radiation hazard symbol on the glassy container and the darkness of the interior created an eerie air. Like she was within a coffin. She was so still, laid down in the clean and sealed medical bay with her ivory pale hair spilled across the edge of the bed. Io looked almost like a figure from a fairy tale, dark veins around her eyes visible and pulsing. The still, comatose princess with the medical staff filing out still wearing their hazmat suits being her attendees.
Only the similarly silent form of her father couldn’t tell if his comatose daughter was like Sleeping Beauty, waiting to wake up at the right moment. Or Snow White entombed in her glass coffin…
He’d been there the moment he could, standing a few meters away from the side of the transport shuttle until his legs were about to give out. Yuji memorized every beep of the pulse monitor, dreading any weakening or slowing of the rate to a mentally exhausting degree. Now he was motionless on a bench Sergeant Hopkins had been kind enough to give him whilst delivering the message from Commander Aso. Yuji would obey the call, but that didn’t stop his heart from splintering to the point of almost shattering.
The look upon his bloodshot, tear-stained and sullen face was borderline catatonic. He barely registered the new arrival taking a seat a few feet from him. A full ten minutes passed in total silence, before Yuki Ichinose managed a whisper.
“I-um… I got Yuri checked out. She’s banged up in a few spots but is otherwise okay. Tried to get her to leave, but the damn girl doesn’t listen to her elders and is chasing ‘the Scoop of the Century’,” Ichinose shrugged with a shake of her head, “Youth rarely listens when I need to… but, sometimes they can surprise us.”
She could hope her audience registered what she was remarking on, more than just Yuri Tachibana in mind. But, just to be thorough, she cut to the chase.
“... She saved all of us, Yuji,” Ichinose looked towards Io, her face reflecting in the glassy window and overlaying the girl’s along with her father’s. Even without a direct line of sight to his visage, she could tell the poor man was near inconsolable with how broken he looked.
“No matter what happens, I doubt she’d regret anything to have done that.”
“... Geiger counter reads above normal, but they can’t tell how severe the radiation is internally here. Dr. Jonson at C.C.I. has more equipment and treatments there,” Shinoda noted in a voice that was simultaneously robotically and yet also cracking on every syllable.
“Nothing more than they can do here, not with that thing nearby, huh?”
“Nothing… I can do… I’ve done enough,” Shinoda gasped quietly, sharply sucking in a breath through quivering lips.
“Yuji..”
“I-I lost her mother because I stayed in Tokyo. She’s gone… because of me,” he whimpered, whatever was left in his sore, reddened tear ducts managing to squeeze out a few more drops to seep from his eyes, “Now, I kept those cells. That blood. For research, for secrets, for anything… I-I kept it, and…”
His eyelids crumbled into themselves as they squeezed shut and his head bowed. He couldn’t bear to look at the comatose princess anymore.
He couldn’t even articulate clearly anymore, “My arrogance- my choices... Godzilla took Asuka away… Now… my- daughter too…”
Yuki Ichinose saw the man fall to pieces and scooted closer. She didn’t act on impulse, but she did act. With as much what was in her heart as what was in her mind.
“You’re right… there’s nothing more we can do… But Io needs you, as much as any of us do. You can’t fall apart now.”
Yuji Shinoda’s mind was clouded by the cold of doubt, fear, and despair. His chest was crushed inwards and he could barely breathe, much less hold onto anything resembling stability or sanity. His daughter, his cherished and Asuka’s last gift to him. He’d caused such harm in his eyes, he couldn’t do anything but focus upon her.
“I-I have to… do something…”
She pursed her lips and tilted her head, “... Have you tried praying?”
Yuji Shinoda stilled in his whimpering, as if briefly thrown for a loop that cut the fog within his mind. He shivered before shaking his head weakly side to side, trying to articulate something coherent with his craggy throat and blurred perception.
“I… What?...” he panted, trying to think what sort of an idea was this, “W-Who would I… Who would I even pray to…? I don’t believe in-......”
Yuki Ichinose shook her head. Somehow he knew she did even with his eyes closed. Perhaps it was some inclination as to her quirks after having been around her for half a year.
“Sometimes… Many times… I don’t think it matters to what, but for who. But when we’ve done everything we are capable of to make the world right ourselves, and it’s not enough… I guess,” she shrugged her shoulders, “It’s about accepting it’s out of our hands, and holding onto hope that something can help. Good luck, any higher powers, skill of others…”
Yuki could admit she wasn’t a particularly religious or ritual-abiding person. But big or small projects, she’d learned being a good photographer was equally parts fortune and skill. Being in the right place, having the right timing, and knowing the right people was just as much in fate’s hands as it was any careful planning on her part. Some ventures her luck paid off, and some it didn’t. Didn’t stop her from holding out hope each time.
In her mind and in times like these, faith and hope were synonyms in function and antonyms to despair.
By some happenstance or fate working as it did, Io had gotten a hold of Godzilla tissue her father wasn’t even supposed to have; and what she did with it saved their lives. Whether she was just trying to hit the monster with a heavy canister and it popped open on accident, or if she’d somehow done it on purpose and how she could have possibly known to; no one could say. Just like the sad truth was, no one could say if this brave girl had given her life to save theirs.
If it was in anyone’s hands now, it wasn’t hers or Yuji’s anymore.
Best she could do now was hold out hope fate was kind.
“I…” Shinoda whimpered, taking in a deep breath and turning his head aside.
A broken man looked at his company with pleading in his bloodshot eyes. No more tears ran from them.
“..I’ve.. forgotten… I nee-d…”
Yuki Ichinose moved a messy bang out of his face, before nodding slightly and offering her hand with her fingers spread. She’d already made up her mind that she’d be tagging along with Io to Kyoto since her father couldn’t go. But it looked like someone else needed her help at the moment too.
-These Shinodas… always so stubborn…-
His hand hesitated, shuddering and cold with sweat, but slowly settling onto her own. She knit their fingers together and nodded her head towards the transport. Holding Yuji together, checking in on Io every day she could, speaking to both over take-out dinners, and signing up for the GPN. All actions that could be summed up with the same three words.
“I’ll help you.”
====================
About half an hour later, they stood amongst one another at the set up field tent. Stacker Pentecost stood with his arms crossed after checking his watch, the second-in-command of G-Force looking to Mitsuo Katagiri and somewhat recovered and collected Yuji Shinoda. Biologist 023 was also in attendance, still manning some of the equipment surveying the UFO and checking for any signs of change.
Pentecost watched the seconds hand tick by on his watch, “Commander Aso is always set to the dot… and he was supposed to be here five minutes ago….”
He shrugged, retraining some of his frown, “023, has there been any indications of the UFO answering any of our hails?”
“None, sir,” the old Mysterian noted calmly, still working at his machinery, “Other than I now believe it is reasonable to suspect that it is responsible for so much of our communications going ary.”
“What indications are there?” Katagiri grunted, “I just checked, the main terminal for all the computers here on base is still secure and requires an ocular scan of one of four people to access.”
“Yourself, myself, Aso, and Admiral Tachibana. CCI’s head, G-Force’s head, and the few Aso entrusted,” Pentecost grunted, not remarking about the unspoken part about how no one else from CCI had access to their terminal, one of the two most powerful computers on the planet. Katagiri wasn’t a trusting man.
“Half of those are missing right now, and Dr. Shinoda and CCTV footage confirms these things are shapeshifters,” Pentecost noted with a glance towards Yuji, “That makes me anxious… In ten minutes, I’m going to authorize a formation around the craft and the Super-X3 to be scrambled to make it reconsider staying quiet.”
“What?!” Katagiri snapped, losing much of his poise as he stepped forward, “You can’t seriously be considering shooting at it?!”
“A freezer maser shot, first above it and then another to disable it,” Pentecost huffed back at the outburst.
Katagiri’s eyes bulged and he didn’t relent, “You can’t be serious! You’d start a war with an unknown force?!”
“An unknown force that has refused contact, is suspected of messing with our systems, is very likely responsible for the altercations earlier with Shinoda and Ms. Tachibana, and came to a city of 34 million people bearing a weapon that can sucker-punch Godzilla,” Pentecost glared back at the head of CCI.
“We don’t know their intentions!”
“And they’ve refused to clarify them, meaning what Shinoda and Tachibana were put through is our only indicator!...” Pentecost’s eyes darted to Shinoda’s, who felt stiff as a statue upon the man’s gaze combined with Katagiri’s also pointing to him.
Pentecost sighed and shook his head whilst trying to lighten his tone slightly, “Dr. Shinoda, much as we bemoan your stunt with Godzilla cells, I am all ears to anything you have to say about them and why they destroyed the creature which attacked you so quickly.”
Yuji stood himself up a bit straighter and felt at his hand, rubbing a finger across his wedding ring as a source of comfort. His mind was still in many places at once, not the least was Io’s transport to Kyoto, but a phantom sensation of a hand knit with his own helped to ground him. There was nothing he could do to help Io right now, Yuki had been right about that. He could only hold hope for those who could, whilst letting fate dictate he would be where he was capable of helping others. If this all worked out, he’d consider it a prayer answered.
“I have reason to believe something about Godzilla’s radiation is especially dangerous to these beings. In fact I also have reason to believe they had been attacked by it before,” Yuji noted as he drew out a laptop that wasn’t his own. Thankfully Ichinose had left him with the password and it was almost comical to see two of the most powerful men in the world and bitter rivals, G-Force’s Pentecost and CCI’s Katagiri, crowd around him to look.
Shinoda opened up several tabs displaying images of cancerous cells and notations done on them.
“These were done by an old colleague of mine, Dr. Elsie Chapman. I’d unwittingly found a tissue sample of one of the entities and had it sent to her for study.”
“Unwittingly?” Pentecost put his hand to his chin.
Yuji turned to look at him, “It was from what I thought was a whale Godzilla had in his mouth back when it showed up at the cliffside earlier this month. I’d sent it to her as all I had was scraps and needed Chapman to figure out the genus. At the time, I only suspected I’d find out what kind of whale Godzilla was preying on to help with research tracking his movements.”
“Cellular structure resembles cetacean proteins on a surface level but testing indicated presence of.. Fish circulatory tissue, cephalopod muscle fibers, and human tooth enamel,” Katagiri read aloud from the notes.
“She compared it to imitation crab meat. At the time it made no sense, but after seeing what I did on the roadway and what Ms. Tachibana and Ichinose saw at the fisheries, it all made sense,” Yuji indicated towards the UFO, “The disappearance of a ship at sea, Godzilla shows up on a cliffside chasing a shapeshifter with both marine animal and human DNA in its make-up, then everything that happened at my home and the roadway.”
“You’re saying Godzilla knew about these things well before we did? How do you explain that?” Pentecost noted, not skeptical but critically in his tone and analysis on how the pieces were being laid out.
“I can’t,” Shinoda shrugged but did maintain a small smirk, “Some things we just haven’t yet, or can’t. How do we explain the second one tracking Biollante hundreds of miles or swimming through magma to know how to get to Mt. Fuji?”
“You’re letting reverence get in the way of realism,” Katagiri cut in, “CCI stocked itself and G-Force with the apex of innovation. You’re expecting us to believe a nuclear aberration somehow knows more about what’s happening than anything we have? Shinoda I thought you told me back at university you left superstitions back on Odo Island.”
“You got an alternate theory?” Pentecost said, “As the chief scientific advisor, I’m all ears as we both know Aso spares you the time for.”
“There is nothing linking the UFO with the entities from the roadway,” Katagiri affirmed with crossed arms, “Based on the samples we have, the being Godzilla was attacking on the cliffside earlier and the creature that attacked Shinoda and company are likely one and the same, I fully agree to that. I will also agree that they are a threat-”
As he continued on, Yuji lowered his brow and looked closely. Pentecost was listening as promised, though likely was letting his personal dislike for Mitsuo Katagiri color his viewpoint. The acting head of G-Force was watching CCI’s leader, but he didn’t truly know him like Yuji did. They’d gone through university together, drank together, Katagiri was one of his groomsmen at his wedding and later suffered through one of the worst days in their lives alongside him back in 1984. And now, he was seeing subtle cues undetected for years… save for when Katagiri personally came to him in that bar to keep him from ordering any sake and, veiled as it was, begged for his help. The very subtle twitch on the left side of his neck, him tightening his grip on his right arm whilst they were crossed, and the general inflection hiding under his words.
He was afraid, and acting on it. Just like he had since first being caught up in a Godzilla attack.
“-And if we provoke a response by the UFO we could jeopardize everything we’ve-”
“Godzilla was never coming after us on Amami,” Yuji cut in, spurring his old friend to pause, “You looked terrified when it looked like he was coming at us and Aso. I should know, I was too.”
He’d been terrified for fifteen years too. He couldn’t afford to let it control him any longer.
Shinoda shook his head, “The UFO appeared on Amami after we’d fired everything at Godzilla. The Super-X3 gets a scramble order on a coded frequency that would take something with some powerful access gateways to codebreak its way in… Like those you can find on the CCI made computers here, on Amami… and on the Eiko-Ryu vessel that had all of its crew go missing along with every one of its computers and hard drives.”
It had made sense to him then, when Aso had him tag along to inspect the vessel that heralded all of this. Godzilla had been near it, the radiation was probable enough cause to suspect that, but how on earth the computers getting taken made sense in the scenario he’d attacked the Eiko-Ryu was the one niggling detail otherwise lost in the crowd.
“At the time, it seemed like the crew had abandoned ship and took their equipment with them as valued items.”
Pentecost nodded along, “CCI tech is as valued as it is propriety.”
“But we’ve had ships active in the region for days, especially with the operation on the nearby Amami islands, and found not even a lifeboat,” Yuji continued the train of thought, “Godzilla never attacked the ship and he wasn’t trying to attack us all on Amami Ōshima or the cliffs. The Eiko-Ryu is attacked at sea by the craft or its-”
He paused to grope for the right answer as to the entities he’d seen with his own eyes, “-drones attack the crew. They take all the computers to learn about us. Godzilla starts chasing the craft and attacks a drone on the cliffside, but the craft eluded him and some drones slipped by. Now aware that Godzilla is a big threat to it, the craft finds a way to weaken him or find a place he’d fight with a handicap.”
Somewhere behind their eyes, one could see the gears click into place for both Pentecost and Katagiri. The only difference is whilst Pentecost remained calm and cognitive, Katagiri’s pupils contracted to pinpricks as paranoia and panic worked in tandem to drag his mind into darker places.
“... Like an island full of humans that this… ‘Junior’ as he was called at the institute, wouldn’t want to hurt,” Pentecost frowned, both at the circumstances and perhaps in some regard, shame. As fantastic as the situation sounded, a lot of the logic was making sense, “This Godzilla is far stronger than the last one. More than we anticipated. After our measures failed, it’s clear he could have leveled the entire island if he so wanted… And of course, this would all but confirm the UFO aliens and the shapeshifting drones, as you called them, are one and the same. If something about Godzilla’s biology was such a threat to them, it makes sense the UFO would let us soften him up before trying any means to get the creature off their backs.”
Pentecost fixed the collar of his uniform slightly and turned to face Shinoda more head on, arms behind his back, “Alright then, Dr. Shinoda. As scientific advisor to Aso’s council, I will value your word as much as he did. And given the need for things to be mobilized, I’ll take your advice on matters as acting commander until Aso can be found. What would your call be?”
Yuji Shinoda was a man of science, he wanted to strive in his career to explore, discover, and help. But to call him a pacifist would be a misnomer as well. Especially when there was a seeming mountain of evidence stacking up that their guests most certainly were not.
“... Disable or down the craft. The occupants are vulnerable to radiation, so the freezing masers on the Super-X shouldn’t harm them too much if we find this was a huge misunderstanding after the fact.”
“YOU FOOL!” Katagiri snapped from his fear-induced stupor and stomped forward, “How DARE you?!”
Yuji cringed and tried to put his arms up placatingly, “M-Mitsuo! We can’t just let this thing run free!”
“And if you provoke it?! If this turns out to just be a scout for something much bigger?! What then?!” Katagiri thrust a hand out towards the UFO with horror etched onto his face, “We can’t risk it! We can’t risk that kind of technology-”
“You can’t seriously be considering getting your hands on their tech to try and catch us up,” Pentecost griped.
“And what if we do get it?! What if we find this UFO is our one and only chance at getting what we need to defend ourselves?! The universe is a big place, and this thing makes the Mysterians look like the stone age Jomon to us! We can’t risk angering them!”
“So you’d do nothing?”
Katagiri stiffened and Shinoda noticed once again, that buried fear pumping through his veins. He was a scientist, that meant he was used to creating hypotheses. And currently, he was working on one for his compatriot.
Mitsuo Katagiri snapped back, “I- Did you pay any attention to what happened at Amami?! All of our weapons and we couldn’t do anything lasting against that thing and this craft arrives to-”
“Sucker punch Godzilla after we’d handicapped him,” Shinoda cut in with a small frown tracing his lips, still studying and analyzing.
“And yet it never fired upon us, until perhaps this trigger-happy neanderthal tried diplomacy with a freezing WMD!” He barked at Yuji and yet indicated towards Pentecost, who looked ready to give the head of CCI a black eye, “We still do not have Aso here to make this call, and I will not be voting towards hostile actions!”
Shinoda frowned, “It wasn’t our weapons that handicapped Godzilla the most, Mitsuo. It was us being there that did.”
“It might have not attacked because the craft was drained of power after putting everything into stunning Godzilla,” a fourth voice, one from Biologist 023, chimed in. He continued to man the monitors to continue tracking and studying the UFO from what scans could show, “It has been following the movement of the sun since arrival. I would presume if it’s like some of my people’s craft, it’s solar charged. And given the sun is almost set, it’ll be done recharging soon if that is indeed what it is doing.”
The old Mysterian stood up straight and turned, adjusting his glasses slightly, “For what amounts to a vote I have as a senior consultant and someone who once led my people’s ship to this world and thus have something resembling experience with this, I am in favor of Pentecost’s plan with Dr. Shinoda’s backing.”
“If, IF that’s what it’s doing? 023, I grew up admiring your publications. You always pursued the most probable route to success. You’re seriously placing your bets, you of all people, on a guess?!” Katagiri yelped, sweat building up across his skin as he saw what amounted to three people all choosing suicide right in front of him.
“He’s,” Yuji recalled Ichinose’s assurance and the first prayer he ever said in over a decade, “Taking it in good faith, with all the evidence he has to weigh it with… Just like we have to take it in good faith that Godzilla’s actions were not hostile towards us but he was aware of the threat these entities posed.”
Sometimes, being a scientist who sought direct answers and putting your faith in some unknowns, even if it was simple as an unknown as judgment; were not mutually exclusive. Yuji knew he’d been blind to that in full until recently, but Katagiri? He was beginning to think for all the bravado, all the posturing, all the power as CCI’s head; Mitsuo had been running off fear for the unknown fifteen years now.
And yet, even so, he couldn’t shake off the pain the look of betrayal behind Katagiri’s eyes gave him. Mitsuo had just done him a monumental deed in helping Io, and Yuji could promise himself he’d spend the rest of his life making it up to him if he needed to.
But, he couldn’t afford to let fear damn them all.
“Mitsuo,” Yuji tried to keep his voice quiet, to counsel rather than scold, “We’ve been trying to be peaceful for hours. We can’t afford to get caught off-guard here. We’ll pursue every option we can to end this peacefully, but we can’t ignore a bear in the house until it decides to bite you too… It already did to my daughter.”
“You.. just said, the Amami operation on Godzilla; one to neutralize a threat, was a mistake,” Mitsuo frowned deeply as he looked at one who’d once been one of his best friends, “... How…can you possibly justify the exact same thing for that monster, on sentient, advanced beings?”
Monster, advanced; Belvera’s words about how they’d just automatically made assumptions for those very words. What irony it was, that they’d let assumptions like that color their reactions to a fellow peaceful Terran and a hostile invader?
“Because we already knew who this Godzilla was,” Yuji Shinoda shook his head slowly, thinking of a lot of sights. The innocent infant curled up in a nest alongside his daughter, those beautiful dreamers, first in mind well before the valiant defense against the Destroyah, then the years of peace, and the placid giant glimpsed on the cliffside, “He was never a threat to us and to target him like a rabid dog needing to be put down ignored the reality of his own sentience.”
Somewhere, deep down, he didn’t really need that blood test to verify that this Godzilla was Junior all along. He’d just needed to stop thinking of his daughter as a hopeful fool for believing in the one thing she’d held out hope for all these years.
“The Amami Ōshima operation against him was born out of arrogance. To ignore the threat this UFO has made any longer is another type of arrogance.”
Mitsuo was silent, but not at all cowed or mollified. He was quiet, glaring whilst clearly fighting fearful tremors.
“Alright,” Pentecost read the room and nodded, “I’ll send the scramble order for the Super-X3 and have 023’s unit send every last hailing signal or messaging manner we can. If it turns out these newcomers aren’t as hostile as they might be, we can make peace after. If it turns out to be the worst case scenario…”
He didn’t need to finish that sentence as the meeting adjourned shortly after. As Pentecost departed to his units and 023 returned to his work, Yuji reached for Katagiri. A hundred apologies, pleas for forgiveness, and more were on his tongue.
All silenced with a stinging pain shooting up his arm. Mitsuo had swatted his hand away and walked out of the tent. On instinct Yuji tried to follow him, only to suddenly get sent stumbling back and gasping. A fist was buried in his gut and the wind was knocked from his lungs. He staggered and gagged, stumbling up to try and catch sight of his hurt friend, only to lose Mitsuo in a sea of moving persons as Katagiri power walked for the CCI office on the base.
“Back to your den to run away from this,” Shinoda whimpered through his wincing, “I’m sorry Mitsuo…”
He remembered his and Asuka’s wedding on Odo Island, and being in that Tokyo train car together on that horrid night in 1984. Himself, Asuka, Mitsuo, and Shiro were all together in the first. Then they lost Shiro by the end of that night in Tokyo. Then they’d lost Asuka a few years later. Only now, in far too many bitter years later and despite them seemingly burying the hatchet earlier in the month, Yuji worried he’d lost the man who’d been his friend all those years ago too.
Fools, idiots, they just couldn’t see it! They couldn’t see the potential in the knife-edge moment they stood upon!
Access to the stars in equal probability with damnation by the cosmos! Either option, blown to bits if they acted the way they were about to! This could easily be one of the most crucial moments in the history of this planet, and they were just blundering through it!
And Shinoda…
Mitsuo Katagiri’s blood boiled as much as fear turned his veins cold. Molten and frigid, frozen and hardened heart with steam gushing from his throat and eyes.
If they were going to be fools and risk both the greatest find in history alongside potentially the greatest threat to humanity if they botched this, he’d have to do as he always did. Steer the ship to keep everyone else alive. C.C.I. was the armament of humanity, and the survival of their kind depended on innovation. Never stopping, never ceasing, always growing. At least a potential future had Japan rise to become imperialistic across the planet, but that was a future where mankind wasn’t stomped under the foot of uncaring giants or exterminated by hostile aliens.
If that had to be the kind of future he’d need to steer them to, so be it. If the universe had just as many potential horrors that made man seem as feeble as a berserk mutation brought about by lesser men’s arms development; he’d just have to keep humanity out of their crosshairs too. By peace or destruction.
He remembered what he told Yuji Shinoda on the ship ferrying them back here. Aso’s speech about a New Era for humanity? He’d do anything necessary to make that happen. Nothing else was going to help them otherwise.
Katagiri typed at the center console of the computers within the CCI building. Meaningful passcodes memorized years ago were put into motion.
Shiro
Asuka
Yuji
Tokyo
548499
One after another until he reached the final necessity.
Despite his prior conviction, Dr. Mitsuo Katagiri paused. Fingers just above the keys. His mind was aflicker with memories. A few were recent, like splitting two cups of milk tea at a bar after keeping Yuji from relapsing. A few were more distant, over a decade old. That exact bar with four cups instead of two. Two ghosts haunted his mind, and the fear of more joining them, be it the sole surviving person who was the closest thing he could consider a friend, his daughter he hadn’t seen in years, or the entire human race, gave him a terrible resolve.
-“I intend to see it happen, and I won’t let anything get in its way.”-
He pushed the command key to enter the password.
Jane.
Remotely, a supercomputer terminal roared to full capacity. C.C.I. 's operations, the second of twin systems that could make the entire rest of the internet look paltry in comparison, turned on with the commands. Billions upon billions of calculations per second, tethering themselves to all of the data thus far acquired by Biologist 023 and others. Efforts to decode any and all signals the UFO had been giving off to try and decipher patterns and meanings. The most powerful and extensive translator known to ever exist by human eyes worked tirelessly. C.C.I. had done well to distribute much of the technology they reverse engineered or produced in-house into the masses; but they’d always kept the best for themselves. This operation, studying and surveying the whole of the internet for studies and clues to the outcome, made the Pentagon’s systems look like a Gameboy.
All of that computing power, put to a single purpose. In as many ways humanly possible, reach out to the UFO and say, “We are here. There is an attack coming, please respond.”
=================
Deep beneath the sea, a giant squid was being hunted by a sperm whale. One titan moving to consume another, with not a witness to behold the event nor any indications of its happening beyond the subtle pings and clicks the enormous cetacean gave off with its sonar. But even as the old bull opened its jaws, the greatest and most powerful of nature in the modern age, both giants abruptly broke from their trajectory to divert away. Nature had its tiers. From the plankton and bacterium to the various fish whom consumed them to the squid who dined on their predators to the enormous marine mammal who in turn dined on them.
But, there were those whom had no answer, no niche in the natural order. It just depended on how one saw that existed, as an aberration or an ascension. The hubris of humanity was at times, seeing their ability to fell the giants of nature as proof of ascension. But it was no submarine the greatest of natural predators made way for today. The squid darted back, spraying ink and oscillating between ghostly white and bright red in surprise at nearly getting clipped by a jagged bony spike. Even the whale's great tail had to fight to not get totally swept up in the wake of the passing leviathan.
The living mountain turned and changed direction. Previously making haste to the harbor of Tokyo with landfall due in a few hours, Godzilla abruptly turned north, northwest. Powering his gargantuan mass at a quickened haste, he turned and dove deeper. Down into a cavity within the unreachable darkness of the aquatic canyons. The lifeblood of the planet, in both its magma and something more, pulsed and writhed beneath the surface. Jaws threw open and blue azure burned through the obstruction to the hollow realm, helping to continue boring through the now exposed lava and twisting energies when a blockage occurred. Beasts of another time or place were now free to escape, but they wisely hid in their hollows at Godzilla's intrusion.
Swimming through water and magma alike, boring through obstructions, and navigating the maze around even his gigantic mass without heed nor confusion as to his destination; Godzilla kept on his path kilometers underneath Japan's shore.
===========================================
That was a fucking ominous ending. Ichinose & Shinoda's moment of prayer was honestly touching. And you did well portraying Katagiri as a Well Intentioned Extremist.
And why you gotta keep Aso's fate in suspense!
Katagiri you fear clouded and arrogant dumbass
Katagiri's words and thoughts in this chapter reminded me of mcu Ultron a bit. More specifically, Ultron's statement "I know you mean well, but you just didn't think it through" seems like it may soon fittingly apply to Katagiri.
Okay. Well things just have taken to the Extreme! Goddamit Katagiri! Why u so Extreme?! I did love the interactions between him, Shinoda and Pentecost. Three different views don’t collide well.
I hope Io does okay. Poor lil sleeping beauty
The beginning of the chapter with Io sick is haunting and disturbing. Do like the description of her as a 'comatose Princess'.
Yuji is...poor guy. Has a lot on his mind. That said, Yuki's attempt to reassure him is sweet.
Also, small typo:
"Nothing more than can do here" should be "Nothing more they can do here" probably.
While Yuki blames himself, but it's the only reason they weren't killed by the Drone.
"Have you tried praying?"
I love that question. Especially since he prayed before and his prayer was answered. Also like the "when we've done enough" phrase. That is what we need to expect from God: we do our part then God takes our hands and leads us forwards.
When there were one set of footsteps, that's when he was carrying us.
And the meme on the readings comes to pass as the text to speech program read every single equals.
Meanwhile, Aso is late and that's a warning.
Also like like that Pentacost realizes the problem with facing down Shapeshifter.
At this point, Katagiri's case is beginning to lose its ground, but it makes sense he'd still hold onto it.
Also like Pentacost putting aside the transgression with the G-Cells and instead seek Shinoda's advice. Shows he's a very reasonable person.
I do like that Shinoda points out that Godzilla has a habit of doing the unknown, and Katagiri shows his humanism. He won't, or can't, admit Godzilla might know something they do not.
And I like how Shinoda finally pieces everything is both logical and a testiment to his intelligence. And I like that Pentacost pieces it together effective.
Katagiri's panic implies he KNOWS Shinoda is correct, but can't ADMIT it. Because to admit he's wrong, and my idea he's a narcissist feels more accurate. He clearly doesn't have an answer, but also can't admit to being wrong, especially not that Godzilla wasn't the threat. He has his reasons, but he's stubborn.
I like 023 for stepping in and putting his votes into it. I do also like that Yuji points out science and faith aren't mutually exclusive.
Yuji doesn't ENJOY this. He wants to be friends, but he can't let fear rule.
I do like Yuji's counter argument to Katagiri's statement on Amami. I also like his internal admission he'd not considered Io might have been right.
I also like that Katagiri's reaction is stated to be FEAR. Of course, fear tends to lead to irrational thought processes, and that seems to be exactly where Katagiri is heading.
I do like that during the follow up conversation, Katagiri can't admit Shinoda might be correct. He has well-intentioned meaning, but he doesn't entertain the possibility that this plan is the correct course of action.
It's also unnerving that Katagiri doesn't have the same fear of the imperialistic future for Japan as others have.
That said, I do enjoy Katagiri hesitates before pulling the trigger. Shows that while this is powered by anger and fear, he still isn't above hesitation.
And we see that meanwhile, Junior is not idol and he's on his way to intervene.
Good chapter, lots of interpersonal stuff and build up to a confrontation that's coming. Very much fun, but also imposing.
Great conversations in this chapter. Both personal and very well done. Really like the build up. I do say Katagiri's arrogance is definitely making him punchable. Oh it makes sense why he's angry but ignoring the obvious signs of any attack by the alien is definitely telling that he isn't thinking clearly.
Also glad to have seen part of this chapter before. Means a lot to have my input in this story matter. Fantastic work.