Frozen North
A reckoning was growing. A tide in which the earth itself had felt, and nature recoiled. A tempest in the clouds spurred by the arrival of a familiar but dreaded cry, elevating, burning hotter, elicited by the golden streaks of lightning breaking the skies. Natural storm clouds in the Frozen North were becoming infested with an unforeseen darkness raging from the South.
A darkness that corroded, that corrupted, and killed any natural wind and snowflake. All to replace it. All to change it. To reform the natural world to his liking. In his image.
The white atmosphere shifted to accompany the oncoming clouds of black. It swirled like an infectious cancer, laying its claim upon the frozen tundra. The golden streaks transformed into unsettling bolts of purple lightning. The lightning itself shredded the earth upon the cloud’s arrival, ripping through mounds of rock and ice with each bolt striking the world. The hurricane-like storm of shadows devoured the landscape and cast the frosty-white haze away.
Laying the land ready for his arrival. And when he came, he came as a shadow. Breaking through the dark with wisps of shadowy fog trailing his form and washing out upon his impact. As he impacted, the world trembled. Ice cracked beneath his feet, his claws, his sheer weight that was only continuing to grow. As he rose, two towering necks of gold and black rose to unveil the jagged crown of the fallen, false king, now reborn into the dual-headed face of terror the world knew.
Ghidorah was in treacherous pain. Both heads writhed and howled as his body struggled to hold back his warring intentions.
By the decree of the Voice that only Emrick could hear—when the Voice chose only to speak to him—Ghidorah let them off on the nearest icy mountain. He spread forth his right wing and let them climb, slide, or fly down to the flattened peak. Holding himself steady despite the agony he suffered. Until Emrick was the last and he joined his people once more.
Bell in hoof, dark cloaking whipping against the fierce, dreaded cold of the Frozen North’s wind, the Immortal Priest spun forth to face his master. He called out to him several times, speaking even to the Bell in hopes the Voice would answer him. But he was given no further instruction, no other word except for the last he had heard and obeyed.
Those words being to disembark. To wait. To trust.
Dahlia approached. Her intentions, her curiosity for her Ruler was growing into concern for what she was witnessing. What they all were witnessing. Her hoofsteps were growing closer, on his side and without his knowledge, and the Harbingers reacted for their priest, cutting her off.
“Stay back!” the Immortal Priest ordained, barely even looking to his side. He saw all he needed to. “Do not keep her away…”
The golden masks exchanged a few glances, before falling down to the young mare and backing away as ordered. With that, the Earth pony was allowed her approach, pausing only mere feet behind Emrick. Sensing her presence, not even turning, he spoke.
“Dahlia…”
“Emrick…” she whispered. She was growing more accustomed to calling him by his name now. He didn’t seem to object to it. None of the Harbingers raised forth a hoof or a voice to stop her. So, she didn’t. Holding her broken stare onto the dark mists ahead, her heart and her spirit ached to hear the shuddering cries of their king. It ached even further the longer she—and her Priest—did nothing.
“… What is to become of our lord?” It was the most she could ask, the height of her and everypony else’s concerns.
Flinching to the sounds and sights of Ghidorah shambling about and screaming, Emrick nonetheless kept his focus cemented. He slowly opened his eyes again. “He told me to trust him.”
Dahlia let her gaze fall to the icy-cold of the mountain peak. The snow that covered her hooves, a frost that was a rarity in the Below. She found herself slipping, letting free a concern of her own heart, her own worries, and what many within the Order may have seen to be selfish.
“And what is to become of us?”
The frozen breaths from his lips ceased, and Emrick turned to her. Seeing the desperate look in her eyes—the same look shared in all of their eyes. All of them wondering if they could and therefore should do something, anything to help their lord. And perhaps even themselves if this were to fail. If this pain was to escalate to death. Yet all of them, deep down, knew there was no stopping what was to come. It was inevitable, and all they could wonder now was what their place in the grand scheme would be going forward.
Even Emrick knew this, and wondered all the same. He knew the prophetic teachings by heart. He knew of the New World to be born of out of the ashes of the old, like a phoenix rising to join with the sun. He had heard the words of his master, in Fillydelphia and now in the Frozen North. With retreat came the opportunity to rebuild and plan ahead. With strength came a great pain to overcome.
With evolution, there must first be change.
Dark forces were at play now. There was no stopping that. Unbridled and untamed within the twisted, reborn heart of the Dragon. They continued to twist his heart, mind, and soul further, elevating so greatly and so painfully that the body began to suffer from the will of the Darkness. As it suffered, it succumbed. It changed.
Emrick never found the opportunity to answer her. Not when Ghidorah slammed his claws into the earth and tore deep into it.
Especially not when the third head erupted.
It came so suddenly and so violently that the members of the Order visibly were taken aback. The Harbingers made no movement, made no reaction. Emrick let slip a flinch, a sharp gasp leaving Dahlia and the mare clutching to his side. His eyes darted to her and rested momentarily. Rested on the pony leaning onto him, gaze fearfully latched with their god. Latched with his excruciating pain and trembling all the same.
Her touch was a welcome warmth in the cold. Her hoof was wrapped around his foreleg, only growing tighter. He made no effort to stop her.
He merely stared where she did.
The third head exploded from the body, resting on the right of the middle crown. Chunks of shattered skin from his previously battle flew off, torrents of black blood raining to drench the icy floor and melt it. Steam arose from the searing heat of the creature’s blood, that same steam drenching all of Ghidorah. The same blood leaking and spilling free in every wound both prior and current.
As the third head reared skyward, it let loose a treacherous and aching cry. The pain did not stop there. A neural connection was established with the other two heads and soon all three were slithering and slashing and writhing in pace with the stumbling body of the beast.
It was a torture of the mind and body, a war unseen waged between the old minds of Ghidorah and the dark power flooding his internal systems. It battled for dominance, tormented the weakened flesh to allow the old minds to shut down. It was as if the body was rejecting the spirit. A spirit that yearned for unity, and a power not even the ghost of Ghidorah could overcome in its broken state.
When it was finally unified, the brokenness was beginning to be repaired. The shattered state was healing. In a long, treacherous, unforgiving display, Ghidorah began his second evolutionary phase.
Lightning began to spark and shoot off across the ice, with golden, purple, and now black bolts of raw energy birthed from his body. More chunks of skin and deeper flesh began to burn and peel off, falling away to allow a greater shell to take hold. Bones were broken, were strengthened, and finally grown in an expansive, new form. The cries were hellish. Claws dug deeper into the ice. All three necks were trembling and suddenly curled back.
Each head took a drastic change. The skin seemed to melt away from the onslaught of the lightning, both from its own body and the swirling storm of blackness swirling around the creature. The winds were picking up, and soon ponies from the cult had to hold on to one another just to not lose their balance and slip down the mountain. As if a massive tornado had formed, it swirled around the Dragon and proceeded to strike it with a fury unknown.
The skulls were reshaped, bones growing with new veins and a new skin to take their place. Instead of a multitude of blank, hollow eyes, each head was given two. Sunken, with pale white orbs that shimmered red, but a mighty improvement upon the first evolution. The jaws of each head were interlaced with a fresh skin, connecting them. Making each maw whole with new rows of jagged teeth. More organized. Much sharper. The jagged crowns as the crescent moon grew even fiercer atop his heads, joining the growing horns twisting and curling in their growth spurt.
In many ways, they appeared much like the heads of the former King Ghidorah, prior to his defeat at the hands of the Usurper. And yet they took their own identity, reborn out of the dark mists and hailing lightning to tremble the earth with a new growl. The storm did not calm by any means. The winds continued their assault and the storm only spread. The Occult of Ghidorah held on and watched on, unknowingly protected by a force they were slowly losing the ability to understand.
The whole time, Emrick never loosened his grip on the Bewitching Bell. His hoof, however, somehow held tighter around Dahlia’s hoof instead of the talisman.
They watched together. They trembled under the might of his growl as one unity, beginning to shudder. Out of the shadows, he rose up. Under the brightening storm of his own creation, rising to the clash of lightning and thunder, Ghidorah stood tall. Much higher, much larger, much stronger than before. He raised his wings, not a tear to be found in them, and created something more.
He lifted all three heads to the skies and created another rival alpha call.
And he was complete.
Celestial Sea
He had long since answered the first call.
His trajectory had changed. Just as he was nearing Black Skull Island, a mere seven or so miles off the coast of the forsaken island to respond to the initial sounds of rivalry, of a potential dissident—or many—to his rule, he had felt something. Something heavier, far more demanding of his attention. And he turned to respond to it.
Lifting his head out of the waves, roaring in agitation to the call of another crying out to the world, the king turned and made a complete 180. Away from the island in the East and onward to the mainland in the West. The broken call proclaimed victory. A victory that would just as quickly become false as this dissident’s inevitable claim to the throne. The island could wait for now.
Just as he had felt the lives of every Titan on and in the world, he now felt the life of another make his call known. It was not a sound he had heard in recent memory. It was broken, not whole, but still held some underlying tones of a primordial and deserving revilement. A treacherous weight in his nuclear heart he had felt before, and knew far too well. It tried to weigh him down, to shudder his path and quake the earth with fear.
But the king feared nothing. Not even the prospects, the miniscule chance… of an old foe returned.
Whatever challenger this was, whatever mimicry it tried to unsheathe, nothing had stood in the king’s path before, and nothing would even now. It begged, nay, demanded his full attention, and so he swam away from Black Skull Island. His trajectory changed to the mainland of Equestria.
And then the second call came. Much more pronounced, rebuilt and nearly whole again. From the North. A roar so damning and so real that there was no haze any longer. There was no doubt in the mind of the king, and his will shifted from reestablishing order to a vengeful quest. Bloodlust and hate filled his vision in the murky depths of the sea. He practically saw red in his narrowed vision under the deep blue.
Godzilla had known the call, the cry, and the roar of his old foe since the days of the sun’s first light, and before the sun’s fall this day, he would ensure that foe would never rise again.
It ended today. The rivalry, the old war, the False King… Ghidorah. Imbalance would finally end.
