Toho Kingdom

This tale that you will soon read is but one of many. And there are, indeed, many. These tales are written to chronicle an age that began in 1954, an age that began with the death of the previous. For it was in 1954 that a man named Steven Martin wrote a book called This is Tokyo. In its prologue, he wrote "And thus the Age of Men has ended, for the Age of Monsters… has begun."

GODZILLA: THE MONSTER WARS

Book One: Cry Havoc

A tale of the Age of Monsters

By

Juan, "Mr. Anonymous" Garcia.

Can you draw out Leviathan out with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord? ...Lay hands on him; think of the battle. You will not do it again! ...Who can pierce his double coat of mail? His back is made of a row of shields, ...Out of his mouth goes flame, sparks of fire leap forth… When he raises himself up the mighty are afraid… Though the sword reaches him, it will not prevail… He counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood… Upon Earth there is not his like, a creature without fear… He is king over all the sons of pride.
Job. Chapter 41.

And another portent appeared in heaven; behold a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon each head...Now war rose in heaven...and the dragon was thrown down.
Revelation. Chapter 12. Verse 3, 7, 9.

Prologue

A land area that will one day be called Tokyo. 65,000,000 BC.

It was hot and humid. It was not unusually so for that time of the year but enough to be noticed by the saurian inhabitants of the land. At least those were the thoughts that flashed through Blood Fang's mind as he stalked through the verdant swampland that made up his home. As he passed by a lake, he set down the huge pulpy bleeding slab of Triceratops meat that he had been carrying in his four-foot long jaws. With that weight off his head, Blood Fang moved his seven-ton bulk from out the pine trees that made up the forest and across the banks of the lake, warm mud and dry ferns squishing through his toes. On reaching the warm steaming water, he pushed aside the algae at the top, and drank his fill. He never let his eyes down, however; you never know when a Sarchosuchus might be waiting in the water.

After taking his water, Blood Fang twisted his massive head around and scratched it with his small but incredibly muscled forelimbs. With that done, he heaved his gray head upwards and smelled her scent. His gold eyes focused on the meat and he resecured his jaws on it. Meat in tow, he resumed his march towards the sea. Only one thing bothered him. He had a tremendous itch from where some insects had bitten him. He would have to find a ramphornychus to dig out the parasites. But that would have to wait; his mate, Pretty Kill, was waiting for him.

At the coastal beach where she and her mate had made their home, Pretty Kill was anxiously waiting for him. Their egg would soon hatch and she wanted him to be there to see it. For hours now, she had lain on her belly watching her sweet little unhatched child. There he was, safe and warm in the sandy nest, nestled inside his egg. There was something special about this egg, though she did not know what. Normally, a female Tyrannosaur laid several eggs yet this time, only one very large egg had been laid.

Very large indeed, Pretty Kill had barely been able to pass it. Yet as this tyrant lizard queen looked at her nest, she felt that greatness beyond compare would come from her child. As she thought of her son, she managed to catch a glimpse of a didelphodon scurrying towards the nest in the thought that she was asleep. One low growl was enough to send the mammals scurrying for their lives. If there was one thing that a saurian hated, it was those revolting mammals. Perhaps her son would be able to do something about the vile vermin. Who knew, if they weren't stopped they might one day take over the world!

However such absurd thoughts were banished from her mind as she saw her mate arrive. At the beach's edge stood Blood Fang with a prize most fine in his jaws. Perhaps the largest Tyrannosaur ever born, he was a fine gigantic buck some twenty-one feet tall and forty feet long. With every square inch screaming of power on raw might, he truly deserved his name of Tyrannosaurus Rex for he stood before her like a king. His gray hide and black stripes set him apart from most other Rexes as did his unusual size and strength. That,and his capacity for affection.

In searching for a place to claim as their territory they had made the perfect choice of the shoreline. The warm sand provided a perfect spot for nesting—they had even somehow felt that their son would be a child of the sea—and the fruits of the sea provided food in abundance. They still remembered how the Kronosaur that had washed up had provided a feast for weeks! Even so, Blood Fang had brought her triceratops meat, and freshly slain at that. Triceratops was always one of the most difficult kills for a Rex, the odds of victory in such a battle were often stacked against him but that is what made victory great.

Blood Fang moved right up next to his mate and set the multi-ton slab of meat next to her. Ever hungry, she dug right in. She seemed so beautiful to him as her seven-inch teeth slashed across the thigh and crunched bone. As the blood splattered across Pretty Kill's huge jaws and as she gorged on raw flesh, her mate felt a burning rush of lust and a desire to mate with her yet again. As Blood Fang saw this, he knew that their child was to have a fine mother.

That was when they heard a slight tiny squeak coming from the nest mound. Apparently Blood Fang had not returned a moment too soon. Pretty Kill used her massive talons on her feet to gently scrape the soil aside, bit by bit, to expose the egg within. On doing that both parents could see that there it was. The egg was shaking and beginning to crack. The father, with all the gentility he could muster, moved his forward and used teeth that could shatter bone to dust to crack the eggshell. The egg then opened to reveal the child inside.

Slightly exhausted from being born, the wet and diminutive child looked around to appreciate his new environment. He caught a glimpse of his titanic, colossal parents but he did not shrink from their sight. Instead the hatchling kicked his feeble legs and twitched his stumpy tail in an effort to push himself past the sandy edge of the nest. Blood Fang was impressed by the sight; this child of his was seemingly one without fear. The hatchling was a solid gray, almost black and had a silver streak down his back; this was quite unlike the normal brown and green camouflage of a hatchling. He would have trouble hiding but something told Blood Fang that his son would never hide from anything.

The child clumsily scrambled up the side of the nest and looked at his parents. His mother, Pretty Kill, ran her rough tongue over him to reassure him. As she did so, he felt an overwhelming love from her. It was a love that filled him to the very depths of his soul. The infant saurian was born from a tyrannosaur but was not to be one. His mother was right in thinking that he was destined for greatness. Future generations would know the child as Godzilla but all the hatchling knew as he curled up in the warm sand of the nest to sleep a sweet and dreamless sleep was that he knew his parents by sight, by scent, and by their love. He knew that they would be together, always.

Lincoln County, New Mexico. 1947

Major Spielberg and his men couldn't believe what they were seeing. The last thing they remembered was being at the Roswell Army Air Force Base. They'd been having drinks and the Major had been telling them his war stories. Their favorite was always the one about the Foo Fighter he and Major Goodhue had seen while taking Lagos in the Pacific back in the war. Nobody believed it but all agreed that it was a good story. Then all of a sudden General Ramey told him that something had crashed somewhere on land owned by a rancher or sheepherder named Mac Brazil. Nobody knew what the crashed object was; it had just appeared all of a sudden on radar and then disappeared somewhere in the New Mexico desert. All that the Major had been told that it was probably just some weather balloon. But just to be sure, he and his men had to investigate.

What they all shone their lights on was not a weather balloon; of that they were all certain. Then all of a sudden, the Major's men thought to themselves them maybe their commander hadn't been lying about the Foo Fighter he had seen back in the war.

What was it in front of them, a crashed plane or—dare they think it—a spaceship? Whatever it was that their beams moved on, it had been ruined beyond all recognition; there was no way anyone could tell what it had been. Shrapnel and twisted metal were strewn everywhere across the New Mexico desert sand and scrub and the main piece of wreckage was completely engulfed in flames. The ground surrounding it was blackened by fire and the thick black smoke was coming off from it rose into the cold clear night sky.

"Sir," asked a private "what is this? Who built it?"

The Major had no idea. As part of the Roswell Army Air Force Base, his base was home to the elite 509th bomb group, which had dropped the atomic bomb itself on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki back in the war. The bomb group was also the only squadron currently authorized to use the atom bomb. As a result of that and the Major's rank he had a good idea of new and experimental planes. Even of those outside the United States. Especially those outside the United States. The hot war with the Nazis had ended, but the Cold War with the communists had just begun. Spy planes had searched the Soviet Union but had never seen anything like this. But if neither the US nor the USSR had built...whatever it was, then who on earth had?

The Major was so dumbstruck, that he could only tell the truth. "...I don't know."

The Major and his men wandered silently about the crash site of the thing when they heard it.

"...help...me..."

At first hardly anyone paid attention but then they heard it again.

"I am in the ship...help me please!"

The Major said, "Did any of you hear that? Check the wreckage! There might be survivors!" The Major immediately went around the plane, or so he thought it to be, to where he had heard the voice coming from. On approaching a large sheet of metal, he heard labored breathing. He quickly told his men to come and help him. They pulled off the sheet of metal, with not a few burnt fingers to help the man trapped underneath. Or man they thought it was. They were in for a surprise.

As they took the metal off it hit the dirt with a dull thud. Then they all turned back and screamed as they pulled out their guns. They were battle hardened men all. They had fought and won the most terrible war in all the history of the world after having been brought to their knees by the Great Depression. Future historians would call them the Greatest Generation. And now soldiers of the alleged Greatest Generation were all trembling like frightened children. Why? Nothing on Earth could scare them. But then, what was in front of them was obviously not of this Earth.

Lying on its back, on the ground, was a giant man sized...cockroach! An entomologist would say that it looked more like a praying mantis, but the Major's men didn't see anything but a monster. They couldn't see the soft glossy brown black carapace. Or the hideous wounds all over it from which yellow blood freely flowed, more and more blood with every breath the insect took. Each expansion of his lungs would make his broken exoskeleton crack further. The men couldn't see the deep multifaceted soulful eyes, eyes which feared the worst, eyes that revealed their keeper's fear that he had failed to warn the humans before it had even begun. All four legs were broken, along with the "hips" where the quadrupedel abdomen met with the trunk of the thorax. And it was from the thorax that the cockroach's mantis like arms were hanging by a thread. The antennae, on the other hand, had been entirely broke off from the head. Then it was from the cockroach's mandibles that words came out.

"...help me..."

Shots rang out from the panicked soldiers' handguns.

"What?!" screamed the Major. "Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" His terrified men did as they were told but now they were on a hair's breadth of going on shooting spree. The Major himself made no effort to lower his weapon. Or conceal his trembling.

"You idiots!" shrieked the cockroach through its mandibles. "What's wrong with you!? How can you, whose nation-state less than two years ago fought the ultimate battle of good versus evil, you whose nation-state stood against the monster of hate, give in to the evil of hate now? I am a sentient being and yet you only let yourselves see a monster, don't you? Don't you?!"

He couldn't believe what he was hearing! It could talk…? But… before being transferred to the Pacific, the Major had fought in Europe. He had seen too many good men die fighting "the monster of hate" to give in to hate now. "Men... lower your weapons."

"But sir-" protested a private.

"I said lower your weapons!" barked the Major.

The soldiers had no choice. Reluctant though they were, they lowered their handguns and looked to their officer.

"...Thank you," the giant insect said through his drooling mandibles. "You are the leader of this band?"

"Yes... I am," said the major barely believing what was happening. "You can talk?"

"Yes I can," answered the insect. "It is courtesy of my planet's universal translator."

"Y-your your... planet?"

"Well you certainly don't see many cockroaches my size on your planet, do you? He he he!" He began coughing. Even laughter was too much in his weakened state. "My name is Kubota and I come from a planet in the Nebula M Space Hunter system. Please you must listen. I have come to your world with a message for your entire planet. It doesn't matter if I live of die because unless the people of your world hear this, all is lost."

The Major knelt down and placed his hand on Kubota's equivalent of a shoulder. "What is the message Kubota?"

"...Ghidorah ...is coming..."

Tokyo. Now.

No matter how many times it happened, it was always the same. Ever since Godzilla had returned in the mid eighties, the Japanese had been on a constant state of alert. He would attack Tokyo again and again with only the slightest warning. That warning was often the only one that innocent civilians had to flee the city or seek the safety of the shelters. It was also often the only chance the Japan Self-Defense Force had to prepare.

This time it was no different. UNGCCC submarines such as Cyborg Whale had detected Godzilla coming several hours in advance as he headed towards the city of Tokyo. It was nowhere near enough time for people to flee the city and barely enough time for the combined might of Japan's SDF and the United Nation's G-Force to assemble for battle. By then, as night had covered the city with its dreadful pall, the soldiers stood ready and the civilians cowered in their shelters, praying that they would survive.

The men of G-Force and the JSDF stood on the docks of Tokyo Bay ready to meet their common foe. The soldiers stood at the water's edge their weapons in hand. Tanks and tank like tread mounted maser cannons stood ready further back. So were missile launchers and every form of ordinance that could be made ready on such short notice. The air was cold and soldiers' innards felt like ice but they were ready to fight and, if need be, die against their enemy.

But as they stood waiting nothing happened; it was almost too quiet. As the searchlights shone over the glassy waters, there was only a ghostly calm. Some soldiers were more frightened by the silence than by the coming battle. Others, seeking something to anchor themselves too, thought of a novel by a reporter named Steven Martin. It was called This is Tokyo. In it Martin wrote of how he had been in Tokyo and seen it completely destroyed by Godzilla in 1954. The novel's translated Japanese version was almost obligatory reading for JSDF officers. It actually was obligatory for G-Force officers. As all those who read it stood waiting for the King of the Monsters to come, they macabrely thought of Martin's narration. It slightly unnerved them as they realized how well Martin's words could describe the situation they were in now.

"This tape recording is for George Lawrence, United World News, Chicago, USA. By nightfall everyone was off the streets. Everyone remaining in the city was on a watch and wait basis.

"The wait, was not a long one."

Then they all saw it. Slowly, inexorably, the enormous figure rose up from the jet-black water. It was as silent as a ghost and as terrifying as Lucifer rising from a pool of liquid night. The searchlights were shone upon him thus revealing his full horrifying visage. On seeing him, some soldiers terrified could barely keep themselves from opening fire, but they had all been trained well and held firm. All stood ready for the order.

"George, here in Tokyo time has been turned back two million years. This is my report as it happens. A prehistoric monster the Japanese call Godzilla has just walked out of Tokyo Bay. He's as tall as a thirty story building."

Indeed, the prehistoric monster that the world called Godzilla was as tall as thirty-story building. That would be about one hundred meters or three hundred thirty feet tall. Godzilla's sheer size made him a scientific impossibility. Yet he was there! He was an apparition from before the dawn of history, from before the dawn of time, alive and awake in the modern world. He was a dinosaur; anyone could see that. But he was a dinosaur unlike any other in the fossil record. Some people had come to the erroneous conclusion that Godzilla was a tyrannosaur. He wasn't. He was bipedal but for the most part the similarities ended there.

Godzilla walked on four toes instead of three, seemingly with his heel touching the ground. There was the stance. Godzilla's body rested directly on top of the hips giving him a fully erect posture like a man. His thick massive, sinuous tail bent low to the ground, almost touching before it gracefully curved upwards in a reverse s-shape. Its final, tapered tip was almost vertical and would reach up over his head, almost touching it. There was the body itself. Godzilla had a thick, incredibly muscled body that almost gave the illusion of stoutness. He had a huge muscular chest. Godzilla's arms were human sized in proportions to the body.

Godzilla had a vertical neck and the head was the shape of carnosaur's head. The double row of fangs and the golden eyes were disconcerting and his skin was jet black. It was as rough and gnarled as the bark of an oak tree. Along his back there were three rows of spines. Each spine was large, jagged, uniform, and roughly maple leaf shaped. They were the color of tarnished silver while the edges were white.

No, Godzilla was not a tyrannosaur. That he had descended from them was true but what had emerged from Tokyo Bay was something far worse.

"Now he's making his way to the city's main line of defense: 300,000 volts of electricity strung around the city as a barrier. A barrier against Godzilla."

The United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center had prepared a new weapon in their struggle. It was a new kind of force field made entirely of electricity. It hadn't been tested, but the JSDF had insisted it be made ready. After all, Godzilla wouldn't wait until testing was done. The plan was that the force field would electrocute Godzilla so much that he would leave. If it weren't enough, then JSDF tanks and G-Force's maser tanks would move in.

As Godzilla moved forward, the force field was activated. From hundreds of one ton seven-foot high circular devices, a transparent 120-meter high wall of shimmering energy suddenly emerged. Lightning bolt like surges of electricity danced along its transparent surface as if daring any comer.

Godzilla was stunned at this sight. What kind of weapon was this that the humans now sent against him? He approached it within a few feet and stopped in his tracks as searchlights making their bright circles move upon him. A puzzled look came over his face and he looked back and forth across the wall of energy before him.

The infantry stood armed and ready with everything from bazookas and shoulder launched missile launchers to rapid-fire assault weapons. All of them trained their sights on their enemy. Meanwhile, dozens of tank like howitzers and rocket launchers aimed their turrets at the monster.

Godzilla, meanwhile, was still looking at the energy wall. Then he moved forward. People saw him crash into it with full force. Screaming in pain as he did so and roaring his terrible roar, he writhed in agony. It was then that the soldiers finally received the order to fire. And oh how they did.

A steel rain fell upon the King of the Monsters. Thousands of tons of munitions crashed onto him in exquisite agony. All the while he was being electrocuted by the force field, lightning raging through him. The damn dirty mammals wanted to play like this? Then so be it!

Bracing himself through the pain, he let his spines glow blue. He then looked towards the one ton seven-foot high circular objects from which the force field was emanating and issued from his mouth a blue white ray of energy that destroyed dozens of them instantly. Not content, he loosed his ray on the other force field generators. And against the men firing upon him.

"I can hardly believe what has just happened. Now it seems Tokyo has no defense."

With the shield down, Godzilla marched unopposed upon the docks and towards the city. Civilians on the shelters were beginning to panic as they heard the chaos above and the stragglers in the streets were running like men gone mad. Fires from Godzilla's ray were spreading faster than any firefighters could ever respond. There was little hope of victory but the Japanese would not let their capital be destroyed so easily.

"They're moving an entire tank core to point blank firing range. I'm saying a prayer George, a prayer for the whole world."

The first line of defense had been breached. Now it was time for the second line. While the monster was still on the docks, a combined group of tanks and tread masers moved in and opened fire. Godzilla screamed his rage at them as both shells and beams of energy ravaged his skin. Unendingly the tanks fired shell after exploding armor-piercing shell at him. The maser cannons fired beams of plasma energy from their energy collecting dishes. Godzilla was staggered by the unrelenting assault. Surely, they would defeat the monster. Surely they would save the city of Tokyo.

"George, the tanks have been wiped out by a wall of flames."

It ended as it always did. The humans press their imagined advantage and are incinerated by a blue white atomic ray of pure plasma energy. True, some tried to flee, the tanks tried to fall back, but there was no chance of escape. Now there was nothing between him and the city of Tokyo, nothing to keep him from its destruction.

"Neither man nor man nor his machines are able to stop this creature. Nothing can save the city now."

Martin's words rang true now even as they did then more than forty years ago. It was true, neither man nor his machines could stop the creature. So a woman did.

Godzilla was striding slowly, deliberately, to the city of Tokyo, ready to bring forth hell on earth and wreak terrible vengeance against the world of men. But just when he was about to enter the city, he saw her. Standing amidst the flame and wreckage, amidst the rubble and ruin, was a woman. She was small, even by human standards. But her courage was larger than most anything. She silently stood before him, her arms outstretched and looking upwards at him. Her face was a not one of anger or hate; but one of plea, pity, and supplication. It was as if she had placed herself there in front of him as if to stop him. If anyone were to see this they would have thought the woman was completely mad. What could this single human do against Godzilla, King of the Monsters?

Everything, because she was the one human whom Godzilla would never, ever hurt. Her name was Miki Seguesa and she looked up at the King of the Monsters with a silent plea on her face, a plea to spare the city.

He wanted to destroy the city, he wanted to rain down ruin on his enemies… but he couldn't. For as much as much as Godzilla loathed the human race, he couldn't bring himself to raise his hand against his beloved Miki. He never had and he never would. As he looked at her his hardened heart was softened, his mask of hate disappeared and was replaced by one of a surrender and resignation. If Godzilla could have sighed, he would have. Miki wanted him to spare Tokyo? Then so be it. For her sake and no one else's he turned around and walked away. He walked past the humans, past the ruins, past the ravaged armies of man. He walked past them back to the sea. Back to the sea where he belonged.

Chapter One

Miki was laughing. She knew that it was a very un-Japanese thing to do, such an open display of emotion. But the story that Private Black told was so funny!

She finally managed to calm herself. Hoping to contain the laughter still inside her, she looked around at the field that they were in. It was such a beautiful meadow with grass and flowers. They both had a good view of it from the hill they were on. The nearby apple tree provided them with shade. Not that they needed it. Though there was not a cloud in the gorgeous blue sky, the sun was just right.

Black picked a flower and thoughtfully looked at it. He was almost out of place in his soldier's field uniform in such a calm and peaceful location. He smiled. He liked his story too. His grandfather had told it to him years ago. It was about criminal so idiotic that he calls the police on himself. His grandfather... God willing, he would soon be reunited with him. "Miss Seguesa, it really is time, isn't it?"

Miki didn't make any eye contact with him at first. When she finally did, she said, "Yes."

Private Black threw the flower away and said "Funny. When you're a soldier, you're always afraid that when it happens it's gonna hurt. When I signed up for G-Force, I was always thinking in the back of my head that some kaiju would, oh, I don't know, step on me or something. But no, no siree." He threw his head back. "Here I am dying and picking flowers. If only in my mind."

"Well," said Miki "The mind is something very powerful."

"I should know."

Both the private and the psychic got up to see who had said that. Miki saw a man who looked slightly like Black but much older. The man was perhaps some sixty, seventy years old. He had gray hair and a wrinkled face. She then saw a smile form on Private Black's face as he recognized the man.

"Grandpa!" He rushed towards his grandfather, crying and hugged him as hard as could. "Oh grandpa! I thought I'd never see you again."

"Don't say that Tim. Of course we'd see each other again. You thought that I was in hell or something?"

"Hell no grand- Oops, I mean..."

"Don't worry about the swearing. I put up with worse from your father when he was your age. And who's this?"

Miki bowed. "My name is Miki Segeusa. G-Force's chief psychic."

Black's grandfather smiled. "I'm much obliged ma'am for what you did."

Miki shook her head and said "No sir. It is I and the many other people of Tokyo who should thank you for having raised such a brave grandson. He bravely fought to the end in the city's defense."

"'Tweren't nothing. Hey Tim why don't I take you someplace nice?"

"Where to grandpa?"

"Home Tim, We're going home."

Miki looked to the two as they walked into a portal of light. As they did so the light grew brighter and brighter until everything she saw was bleached away. When the light was gone and she opened her eyes, she was back to where she had been. An emergency military hospital set up on the outskirts of the Tokyo Bay Area. Back in a tent whose cloth she heard flapping in the wind and back the land of the living. Or in this case of the dead as well.

Miki sat in a chair next to Private Black's cot. As badly as he was hurt, he was lucky in that he at least had a cot to sleep on, partially because of his condition and partially because of his being one of the first ones to be rushed in by the medics. It had been hours since Godzilla had left, but the army doctors were still bringing in wounded soldiers by the dozens, perhaps hundreds. This individual tent was already reaching its maximum.

Every cot had been used up and now men had to be placed on the floor. Miki sighed. These men had given their lives protecting Tokyo and were being cast aside on a cold floor? It just wasn't right.

She looked over Private Timothy Black's bandaged body. It had suffered multiple lacerations, severe burns, and was very bloody. His face was covered with numerous scrapes and both eyes were blackened and swollen shut. The chest was especially bandaged; a piece of shrapnel had imbedded itself there. Indeed, that was how it happened. He had been driving one of the maser tanks when his commander had given the order to fall back. It had been too late and Godzilla's ray hit. It was less than a glancing blow but it had been far more than enough to cause the vehicle to explode.

Now at least, Private Black's suffering was over. Miki reached to his face out and closed his blackened eyes even as tears came from her own. "Rest now Tim, you did good."

/o0o\

Kyle Martin was frantically looking for tent 07. The last he had heard, Miki was there, tending to the wounded. Indeed, they seemed to be everywhere. The tents of the field hospital were a hive of activity. Medics were rushing in and out, larger black bags taken out with them. Those more severely injured would be taken to a real hospital for better treatment than what could be offered there. As he saw "the helpless mass of human wreckage"-grandpa, thought Kyle, you sure know how to describe the damage that freak causes.-he felt his heart break.

While Kyle had seen death ever since he'd joined U.N.G.C.C., he'd never gotten use to it. Kyle took off his G-Force beret and ran a hand through his short blonde hair. He smirked and thought about how he and his fellow science men stood far away from the actual battle giving advice to mere "grunts" while those "grunts" laid down their lives on the front line, like all the brave men who had fought and died that night.

As he saw them he felt a rage inside of himself. Just looking at them made him burn up inside. He felt his hate for their killer inside of him. While he wasn't a soldier, he had fought too long and had known too many of them not to want payback. Talking to men of uniform in the past, he found that that was something common to all of them. No matter what the country, no matter whom the enemy, no matter what the reason that they were fighting; that was the one emotion that every soldier inevitably felt, even if all other emotions were forgotten. Payback. You kill my brother, I kill you.

In time, Kyle found tent 07. He unbuttoned his G-Force jacket; it was slightly warmer inside the tent. However, when he looked at all the wounded men, he took off his G-Force beret and stood in silence. They lay there in silent pain. Most were mercifully unconscious. Those whom he could see through the dim light were all still. And it was through the dim light that he then saw his girlfriend, Miki, holding an injured soldier's hand. He correctly guessed that he was one of many injured men whom she had sought to comfort.

That was what he loved about her. Ever since they met at Tokyo University all those years ago, he had seen that no matter who it was, she was always ready to help a person in need. There was no cause she would not hear out, no injury for which she would not shed a tear. As a child, she had befriended burakumin children, burakumin-people of villages-who had traditionally been looked on as filthy outcasts by Japanese society. Indeed, in earlier times they had been called eta, or full of filth. In her adulthood, she had taken up the cause on the Ainu, the aboriginal people of Japan. Her straight shoulder length black hair framed her face and her Mothra cross earrings dangled from her ears. The lamp shone its pale light in that's face's soft Asian features.

"Miki?"

"What? Oh hi Kyle."

She gave one last look at the injured man and she got up. She picked up her G-Force cap but didn't put it back on. She worked toward him slowly in her usual field dress. Black cotton t-shirt tucked into gray pants held up by suspenders. Her sunglasses were in her pocket and her cap was in her hand. She walked with Kyle out of the tent into the night, the constant sound of busy military men readying themselves for another fight and medics caring for the wounded in the background. Miki held Kyle's hand and laid her head on his shoulder as they walked outside of base camp and towards somewhere quiet.

Behind some tents, Kyle heard Miki crying ever so softly. He held her to himself and began to rock her gently back and forth. "Shhh. ...Miki, it'll be all right. It's over now."

"For now."

"At least for now. You did great. You really came through for us back there. If you hadn't sent Godzilla back who knows how many people could've been hurt or killed. I don't know how of you did that."

Miki slipped from his grasp and sullenly looked away from him. She looked first at the ground and then up towards the night sky. She sighed. "I did the only thing I could do, the only thing that could have worked against him. The one thing that nobody ever tries to do. I tried to understand him."

Kyle was stone stiff in the cold. He looked at Miki long and hard before finally speaking. "What did you say?"

"You heard me right the first time Kyle," said Miki. "I said that I tried to understand him."

"No, no, no, no! We are not going to get into that tired argument again. Miki, Godzilla is a murderous monster, what is there for you or anyone to understand?" Kyle rolled his eyes and sighed. "Miki, don't go making me into Evil-Man, I'm not your enemy. But just to humor you, what is there to understand?"

"I've known this ever since I was child. That Godzilla may be frightening, even dangerous, is something even I can't argue with. But while he may be dangerous, he is not evil. Have you ever thought of how it must be like to be him? After sixty five million years you wake up and it's all gone. Every thing you ever knew, everyone you ever loved is just gone. You're a stranger in a strange land. Nothing is the way you remember it. Your whole world, gone forever.

"But that wouldn't be the worst part. No, not by far. Covering your world, are things, little monsters that have seemingly ruined it. And then, for what you perceive to be no reason, they try to kill you. They hunt you relentlessly to the edge of the Earth and back. Think of it Kyle. All Godzilla's friends dead, his whole world gone, he's hunted wherever he goes. It makes you wonder why he even bothers fighting to stay alive at all. You'd think he'd welcome death. Aside from his misery, what does he have to lose? Yes Kyle, I do feel sorry for Godzilla. In too many ways he is the victim; in his eyes we are the monsters."

"What?!" yelled Kyle. "You'd call that freak a victim!?" He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her along with him. "You are coming with me."

Kyle led her back to the tent where they had just been and shoved her inside. He went inside himself and angrily glared at her as he pointed to the dead and dying. "Are you blind? Do you see what Godzilla has done? Odds are that half of them aren't going to make it and their blood is on his head. Sometimes I don't know why I ever said I wanted to be your boyfriend. I'm beginning to think you don't care about people at all. You just went in there to get brownie points. Is that it? You say I'm Mister Bad Guy?

"Listen to this. Godzilla has just caused too much destruction, taken too many lives to be allowed to live. I've tried to listen to what you say, I really have, but the fact is that nobody is safe when he comes. He is the most dangerous thing alive and is too dangerous to be allowed to live. He has to die."

She looked at Kyle. "Don't you think I know that? I know how dangerous he is. It's just, just that..."

"What? You just what?"

Miki sighed. "I don't know. It's just that... maybe I can change him."

/o0o\

Meanwhile, deep in the underground global headquarters of the United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center, the greatest, most elite monster response team in the world, the leaders of UNGCC were watching on screen the devastation that had happened mere hours ago. The three men sat alone in the conference room, thinking about what they had just seen.

"Well, don't that just beat all." Director Goodhue got up from his chair and walked toward the window that overlooked the main command center. With both its beyond high tech futuristic look and dark, intentionally intimidating appearance to discourage outsiders, it was a cross between NASA's mission control and the Batcave. It was also an insane hive of activity when Godzilla or any other kaiju attacked Japan. Technicians would run back and forth, communications men would monitor incoming information from the military in the field. Dozens of computer stations would be relentlessly pounded. Every eye would be turned towards the giant screen on the main wall.

But always, always, there would be the sea of calm, the eye of the hurricane. The eye would be the raised platform in the middle of the room. On that platform would sit Goodhue along with two other men. Each had his own computer station and communications panel, not that they needed such things, though. No, that wasn't why Goodhue was there when Godzilla attacked. Goodhue would sit, calm and sure, in his chair watching the screen, commanding the men below him as if he were a king on his throne.

Now, it was fortunately calm. There were a few men and women at their posts, monitoring incoming data and directing relief efforts from their computer stations. Watching the whole scene from high up in the private conference room, part of Goodhue almost wished that Godzilla were still attacking. At least that way he could feel that he was doing something and not be in a conference room just watching the videotape of his men's defeat again and again. Oh how that Goro Maki of Toto Press would have a field day with this! Ever since that scoop about the attack in 1985, Maki had been Japan's self-proclaimed Godzilla reporter, or, as Goodhue thought, UNGCC's professional slanderer. He kept this opinion to himself. He knew that Hayashida had met the reporter back in the mid-eighties. Well, at least he could count on UNWTN's Godzilla Watch Network and Connie Matsu to tell it straight.

The old soldier stood silently in his officer's uniform. Or what was left of it. He had taken off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirtsleeves as he often did when he felt frustrated. Goodhue ran his hand through his thinning white hair. To this day he remembered seeing Godzillasaurus that first time on Lagos. If only that could have been the last time as well. He didn't become a soldier for this! He wished that McDonahue had never called him away from the golf game with that Admiral. Oh, how he remembered that day in 1985, when the world found out Godzilla had returned after thirty years. It felt like it was a hundred years ago. Back then, Goodhue knew who his enemies were and how they could be fought. Communists were bad, but they were nothing compared to giant monsters. However, like it or not, he had his duty. But...

"Aarrgh! I don't believe it! Those eggheads promised that it would work. They said their electricity force field would fry him like a jumbo-sized fly in a jumbo sized fly zapper. And it wasn't worth a warm bucket of spit!"

Looking at each other from across their seats at the table, Commander Aso and Professor Hayashida exchanged worried glances. Regardless of their feeling towards force against Godzilla, there was one thing that they could agree on. Westerners, they're all the same.

Hayashida adjusted his tie and checked his vest before clearing his throat. "Director Goodhue, sir, I should remind you that the men in research and development told us that it would be effective against Godzilla only after testing was done. They advised us that more tests needed to be made and told us that something like this might happen."

Goodhue sighed. "Yeah, I guess your right Hayashida. It's just... I feel so angry doing nothing. Well, we might as well just pick ourselves up and think up some other cockamamie scheme and see how badly it screws up. So Hayashida, what's your plan this time?"

"Its Project T1," said Hayashida with a slight tone of pride in his voice. "It's taken them a long enough time, but my team is finally putting the finishing touches on Project Telepathy."

"Project Telepathy..." Goodhue nodded. "I've been wondering how it was going. Alright, what's the story? I'd like the standard dog and pony show."

"I'll have to leave for a conference in Britain soon so I'll have to give a quick explanation. For a more detailed explanation you'll have to consult my team. As you know, ever since Miss Miki Seguesa revealed her psychic powers to the world and that she could offer suggestion to Godzilla, it has been theorized that somehow a telepathy amplifier could be used to control monsters. This theory received further support after Miss Segeusa suggested that godzillas would communicate to one another by means of ESP.

"As research into telepathy continued courtesy of our Psychic Center and Tokyo's Psionics Research Institute, and technology continued to advance; the possibility of a telepathy amplifier slowly, but surely, became a reality. My staff and I have been hard at work on a working model for over a year know. We are know making the final tests and it should be ready for field use in a few weeks."

Goodhue crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "How exactly will the device be placed on Godzilla? What exactly will the Amplifier do?"

Hayashida answered, "The device will be fired from a firearm of some sort into Godzilla's skin, hopefully at the base of his neck. Once there, a psi gifted individual will place on herself a special helmet that will increase her powers. The commands will be beamed via satellite into the receiver implanted on Godzilla's neck. The receiver will further amplify the signal and it will place Godzilla under our complete control."

"I don't understand why you'd want to do that Hayashida. Why would you want to make him your little pet, like some radio controlled toy?" Both he and Goodhue looked at Commander Aso who had said that. Dressed as always in full officer's uniforms with every medal and badge he'd ever won on his chest the supreme commander of G-Force Alpha—the highest military force of G-Force, UNGCC's armed branch—sat there haughtily. He scowled at Hayashida from underneath his officer's cap. "Tell me."

"There is a two fold reason," Hayashida said, successfully controlling his slight irritation. "First, and most important of all, with Godzilla under our control, he would never again pose any threat to human life. We could even use him to combat other more dangerous monsters. Secondly, we could gain immeasurable scientific knowledge. Armed with that knowledge, we could combat other monsters far more effectively. I am even confident that we could find a way to keep other kaiju from even appearing."

"Sounds like a good idea," said Goodhue.

"Yeah, it sounds like a good idea," said Aso. "But Director Goodhue, though I am sure you can understand that such a plan of action is flawed. Many people, such as Hayashida and Segeusa, have such suggested that after taking into consideration the seeming futility of conventional weapons, that a method of containment be found. However, if Godzilla were to be merely contained, then there would always be the risk that he would escape and, enraged by his capture, would be even more destructive. The only way to end his threat forever is to find a way to kill him."

"And how do you suggest that?" asked Hayashida.

Aso smiled. "Project T2. Project Toxin. Its been championed by Kyle Martin. He assures us that his toxin, tailored to Godzilla's DNA will be fully effective. Not even the beast's healing power will be able to stop it."

"Aso, from what I've heard, Project Toxin is nowhere near the testing stage. Using it right now just won't be worth the effort."

"Oh, so you're saying we should use your little device? If it's so good why didn't we see used against Godzilla in the attack a few hours ago?"

Hayashida scowled. "Because testing wasn't finished yet. And even if it had been the whole situation wouldn't have allowed the deployment of Project T. Your use of force just-"

"Just what!" bellowed Aso. "I least MY men are actually doing-!"

"Enough!" Both Commander Aso and Dr. Hayashida froze at Director Gooodhue's command. If there was anything that Goodhue hated, it was having to play referee with squabbling subordinates. God knew he had enough of it with Colonel Raschell and Major McDonahue back when he worked for the US military. He knew he shouldn't be surprised though. The only successful scientist and military man team that he had ever known of was General Grooves and Dr. Oppeheimer in the Manhattan Project. And look at what they gave the world.

Even so, the fighting between Hayashida and Aso was so common as to be ridiculous and Goodhue hated it. So, once again, he had to be the one to break it up. He looked at the two men. "Listen you two, if you're going to fight save it for the monsters. Hayashida has a point. If we can control Godzilla then we could keep him from ever destroying again and we could even send him against other monsters. And with all the information we could get from him would show us how to fight other monsters.

"But Aso also has a point. The only way to end Godzilla's threat forever would be to actually kill him and as long as he's alive there will always be the threat that he would escape from our control.

"Listen to this. Hayashida, after you come back from your lecture, you will go as part of a special G-Force detachment. One platoon headed by Lieutenant Santos. The Secretary General's son will need some action if he's going to get into ready for MOGUERA. Him, you and your telepathy amplifier will have the first crack. If you can leash the dog, fine. But Kyle Martin will go with you. If you fail, then he will get to put the dog to sleep. Is that fine?"

Aso and Hayashida both looked at each other. "Fine."

/o0o\

Deep in the Himalayas, south of Tibet and east of Nepal, was a tiny country called Selginia. It was a country of Himalayan Mountains and sherpas, of yetis and Shangri La. Its government had always been a theocracy with its reigning king or queen serving as chief priest from a palace that doubled as a monastery. Perhaps because of that, the Selginian palace was more like a fairy tale castle than a real center of government.

Selginia's independence had always been a precarious one. In ancient times, it had been besieged by conquerors for offering one of the few passages through the Himalayan Mountains. Legends told of Alexander the Great trying to pass through the tiny nation. Other legends told of Mongol Hordes storming Selginia's mountains in their dominion of Asia. In modern times it achieved independence from India at about the same time that India gained independence from Britain. Prior to that, it had been India's Sikkim Province.

Its most famous struggle for independence, however, was from communist influence in the 1960s. Then queen Selena Sulna survived several assassination attempts due to the help of a brave Japanese detective named Shindo assigned to protect her from assassins, sadly led by her late father's aide Malness, while she was in Japan. If not for him then she would certainly have died, her country might have become communist, and her granddaughter Princess Selena Salno would never have become heir apparent to the Selginian throne. There was even rumor that Detective Shindo was princess Salno's grandfather.

Now, however, Selginia and the entire world would soon have to fight for their independence, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. Why? Because he was coming. Princess Salno nervously adjusted her royal bracelet as she thought this to herself. She stood in silence in her ornate throne room looking out from the window to the mountains beyond. This was the roof of the world. Ever since the princess had learned her family's secret as a child, she had hoped that somehow her kingdom could somehow be spared the horrors when they finally came. But no. As she looked at the mighty snowcapped mountains and the gravel strewn moss and lichen covered valleys below—some of which were higher up than other nation's mountains—, she knew she would have to stand ready because no nation would be spared the demon's wrath.

She turned away to look, beautiful and ornate in her royal regalia, at her large, burly, almost ape-like Tenzin Yetriggar, her Prime Minister of State. "It's going to happen," she said. "It's finally, really going to happen."

"No your highness." Prime Minister Yetrigar walked up towards her. He believed the legends. "It will not happen if we can help it. I had always believed the legends of how in ancient days our ancestors had come from the heavens and had grown up hating the monster the tales say drove us away from our true home. When I became your Prime Minister, I knew that I could not let it happen again; that no matter what, we would have to stand ready against our enemy."

"Mines are similar feelings," sighed Princess Salno. Then she allowed herself a slight, sad smile. "I remember how my father had frightened me with stories. 'Be good or the skyllan he'll come and gobble you up!' My family has been waiting for his return, keeping this terrible hidden knowledge, for twelve thousand years. I always knew he would return in my reign. I have had the dreams since I was a child. As a girl my father at first said that they were merely nightmares, but when I told him what I had seen he and my grandmother realized that they were visions. Now to see it in the news that his prison has found and it will be opened in ignorance… I wonder if I'm strong enough to help."

"Don't say that your highness." The Prime Minister placed his hand reassuringly on his uncrowned queen's shoulder. "I'm sure you'll be able to help. Even know they await our response. Even now our plane waits to take us to the country's 'white house.' I am sure America's president will listen to us. If fortune is with us, we may even be able to stop this disaster before it starts."

Princess Salno crossed her arms and said, "I pray you're right Yetriggar." She held the Selginian royal crest in her hands. On the crest was a three-headed golden dragon, from Selginian legends. The legends said that once, beyond the stars, there lived a race of beings that weren't gods but were more than men. However, an evil dragon came and destroyed their home and nearly killed them all. What few that survived came to earth and founded the nation of Selginia as Selginia's royal family. Even so, the legend said, the dragon had vowed to scour the cosmos of life and would one day descend upon the world to bring forth hell on earth. The dragon's name was King Ghidorah.

Princess Salno weakly said, "For the survival of the entire world, I pray you're right."

Chapter Two

Moonlight danced as a million sparkles on the waters surrounding the small island as the soft tropical breezes warmed the night. It was a beautiful night, but one like any other for this was the place called Infant Island, home of Mothra and, from time to time, her roughish brother Battra. The two were utter opposites; that was obvious. In fact such a truth was central to the faith of their worshippers: the truth of their duality. One protected the earth, one protected the people of earth; one was soft, one was hard. They were yin and yang, forever linked by the unity of opposites and they thus had all truth between them. It had been that way ever since the beginning, since the beginning so long ago.

They had lived since the ancient days of Atlantis and Mu and Seatopia for their civilization had been the oldest of all. It had been Lemuria and it had been one of magic. Mothra had been both its ruler and guardian angel. Now all that was left of that once great civilization was a single island and a handful of humans. It, along with those of the other ancients, had been destroyed by the Cataclysm long ago. When that happened Mothra had stayed awake just long enough to see that her people were alright. With that, she went into a deep sleep with a promise that she would awaken when an Age of Monsters began. That promise took 12,000 years to fulfill but she fulfilled it nonetheless when she returned in the year 1961 of the common calendar.

Her people by then had lost all their magic. An unkind observation would have referred to them as primitives. Even so they were still content because they knew that they had Mothra watching over them. In fact, they knew that it had been she, in her egg in the temple, who had shielded them from the worst of hell's fire, their term for the atom bomb that had been dropped on them by Rolisika. Even so the suffering caused by that bomb had been great, and it left the Infant Islanders with a loathing for the outside world. Despite all of that, it really wasn't until the outside world came to them, murdered their people and kidnapped Mothra's fairy priestesses that they truly knew of death and suffering and evil. It was then, and only then, that Mothra lived again.

Mothra awoke and went to the land of her people's enemies to rescue her priestesses. It was thought that she would take revenge on them, but no. Once she had been given her handmaidens, she left in peace. Belvera and Battra were another story however. After the Cataclysm that destroyed the Ancients left both Mothra and Battra in a deep sleep, Belvera decided that she and Garu-Garu would leave the Earth and wander the cosmos until one or the other reawakened. When her sisters told her telepathically that Mothra had returned, she raced home with all speed.

Yet her joy was soon turned to sorrow on seeing Infant Island, her home and place of birth, turned into a radioactive wasteland. She had always been the most defensive one and the one most easily offended so her sisters, Moll and Lora worried that she would be...angered. But she wasn't angered. She was enraged. She felt the Infant Islanders' hate, their rage, and all their sorrows. But the final straw came when she learned that fate of the egg.

Both Mothra and Battra were gifted with a form of immortality. When Battra reached the end of his life, either by old age or injury, he left his body to be born again from the womb of the Earth. However, when Mothra reached the end of her life, she would lay an egg and at the moment of her death would leave her body to enter the egg and thus be born again. The egg would thus be guarded as a sacred relic and so it was the nightmare of nightmares when a hurricane washed it away from the island to Rolisikan shores.

When it finally happened, greedy businessmen immediately put the egg on display. Their action went unchallenged; the Rolisikan government still remembered what Mothra had done to them years earlier and so felt a foolish pride in seeing her egg in their hands. The Elias went and tried to reason with them but they would not listen. When Belvera saw this she was infuriated. Not only had the humans sentenced Mothra to a slow agonizing death by radiation poisoning, they had stolen the sacred egg. Because of this she went straight to the businessmen and threatened to kill them. This, unfortunately, only made things worse. The Prime Minister had seen the dangers of keeping the egg and had sought to return it but after this he was forced to side against the Elias. When the egg finally hatched, it was not to the Prime Minister's delight.

Often, when an egg was laid, just Mothra hatched out. That time it was different. When the egg finally hatched, both Mothra and Battra hatched out. Previous to that, his soul had slept in a Siberian glacier. When he learned that his sister would live again, he chose to be born again alongside her.

Mothra had awakened first and thus had known what to expect, but Battra had been blasted to the ends of his soul by the depths that humanity had sunk in the time that he had slept. In time he came to hate the humans of the outside world. This loathing was only fueled by his link to his priestess Belvera. Disgusted by the evil of men he eventually became the enemy of man with Belvera at his side.

In fact, Belvera and Battra eventually came to see themselves as saviors sent to save the world from human evil. Anybody not part of the cause was part of the problem. They spared none that judgment, not even their own sisters. Because they had tried to make peace with the outside world, Belvera and Battra looked at their sisters, Mothra and Moll & Lora, as traitors to the cause who had to be punished. It wasn't until the Gigamoth incident that that changed.

It began with their old enemy Rolisika. They had collected tissue samples of Mothra in their battles against her and used them, along with DNA from Megagurius, to create their own monster they named Gigamoth. They had planned to use it against Mothra or any other kaiju that threatened Rolisikan shores. Belvera saw this and decided to sell her soul to the devil, as the proverb goes, in uniting with Gigamoth. She thought that if the clone moth were to unite with Battra and herself, she could strike at the human race as never before. She was wrong because Gigamoth was a creature with her own goals. In a battle fought over the Rolisikan capital of New Kirk City, she soon turned against them and almost killed Battra before Mothra came and saved both her brother and Rolisika from the evil one.

Things changed after that. Both Belvera and Battra had been so touched by their sisters' kindness and by the kindness shown by the Rolisikan government in having their best kaijuologists nurse Battra back to health that, in a press conference, Belvera renounced their war with humanity and asked forgiveness from the Rolisikan people. The Prime Minister said that they had only sought to protect their home from those who had harmed it. For that, and for having saved them from their own creation, there was nothing to forgive.

Relations between Rolisika and Infant Island improved further when Rolisika gave the Infant Islanders Anti Nuclear Energy Bacteria which they had made themselves. It was from a small plant native to Infant Island, which for years had been made into a drink to "cleanse one of the evil spirits." The following spring after the ANEB had been used on the island's soils, spring came to the whole island for the first time in over fifteen years.

When Battra and Belvera saw this, they at last realized that while some humans were evil, they could not be punished at the cost of the innocent. Afterwards, Battra even became an ally of men from time to time, though a reluctant one, in fighting alongside her sister. Both he and Belvera sought to cultivate a bad boy and bad girl status. In fact, Infant Island mothers told misbehaved children to be good or Belvera the imp would get them. It was Belvera the imp herself who made that up and it made her roll her eyes every time she heard it. After all, the humans gave her too much credit; she only chastised the very naughtiest of children!

Indeed ever since they had returned in modern times, they had seen things that they would never have believed, but their greatest challenges would soon come. They were to be the Monster Wars and they would decide the fate of the Age of Monsters. The survival of the entire planet was to be the prize because the enemy was to be the King of Terror himself. The players of the game would have to mobilize if any hope of victory was to be had, but a soldier can't go off to a war without first saying goodbye.

On the moonlit shores of Infant Island there stood brother and sister, Battra and Mothra. The lush, vast, verdant, tropical forests stood behind them, as did the mountains. At the moment, many of the islanders slept; only the sword armed red painted warriors of the isle kept vigil. The two moths looked at each other and the differences could not have been more striking.

On the one side stood Battra, feared, and justly, as an angel of death. His every feature screamed of retribution and this made sense for, as a creature of magic, his body was reflective of his soul. The moth's skin was as black as night and was a hard, scaly carapace. His whole hard, rough, angular, ugly body was covered with spikes and horns, his back especially. His face was equally hideous. Its mandibles were like stone spikes and his eyes glowed a frightening red. From his head was a craggy bright yellow horn. At seventy three meters long, with wings one hundred eighty meters wide, and weighing 30,000 tons Battra was a force to be reckoned with.

Facing him was his twin sister Mothra. Whereas her dark brother was called the angel of death, she was called an angel of mercy. Her every look, her every gesture, was of love and kindness. Her skin was soft and covered with brightly colored fur. Her wings were a marvel to behold. There were markings of red and black and yellow and gold in the most delicate and beautiful patterns imaginable. The top and bottom of her face was red while the sides were white to contrast the gentle blue of her eyes. Her mandibles were a glossy black and her white antennas swayed ever so slightly in the wind. She was a bit smaller than her brother. She weighed a petite 22,000 tons and her wings were a mere one hundred seventy meters wide meters while she herself was a tiny sixty five meters long.

As these two siblings looked at each other, they knew that they might never see eye to eye.However there was one thing that they would always agree on: the desire for a better world. They both sought to achieve it differently, but they both believed in it. And for that better world, they were willing to put aside their differences. As they were now. After all, they were brother and sister, they were family. And family stands together or it dies together.

Battra looked at his sister's gentle face and into her soft blue eyes. Why did she have to go? Why did she always have to be the one that had to go and save the day!? Didn't she understand the dangers she would face, that this would almost certainly be a suicide mission and that she probably wouldn't come back?

Mothra looked away from her brother. She did know and she was frightened. But she had to go, if not her then who? When the King of Terror finally came, nobody would be safe. She might as well die having tried to stop him than let him come and die anyways.

Battra's eyes flashed red with anger because he couldn't understand why he at least couldn't go to help her.

Mothra let her feelings wash over him telepathically so that she might soothe his warring spirit and chirped out her soft cry. He couldn't go because if did and she failed, then who would be left to guard the island and their people?

Battra growled. He knew that their people were their responsibility. He knew that it had to be done, it's just that...he was afraid for her. Battra was at a loss for "words." He, like Belvera, had never been good at the soft tender things and at that moment he cursed it. Tears came from his eyes, if there was only some way for Mothra to know just how much she meant to him.

But she did. She placed her cheek against her brother's to let him know that she would always be in his heart. This was the last thing that she let him know before she spread her rainbow colored gossamer wings and took off into the night. As Battra saw his sister fly off perhaps for the last time, he remembered what she had "said". She would be in his heart. Battra prayed that he would always be in hers.

/o00\

Yes, saying goodbye could be very hard to do, for humans as well as monsters. Steven Martin felt that in the depths of his soul. He would soon have to leave and go to the psychic center to speak to Miki. While he liked being able to help, he appreciated the rare moments of calm between the storms, when he could just be left in peace, like Hayashida. Unlike Hayashida who found comfort in teaching, Steven Martin preferred the company of old friends, like Emiko Yamani.

The two were in her house in Tokyo, remembering old times. It was small but pleasant and softly lighted; the coaches that Steven and Emiko were fine as always and the tea was just right. The house had originally been her father's but he had willed it to her and Shinkichi but now that Shinkichi was dead, it was all hers. It was the original house, one of the few buildings that had survived the first attack in the fifties. Not that that was any prize with how alone she was sometimes. Her niece and nephew would rarely visit; Yukari was off reporting out of Tokyo and Kenichi was studying in America. She was often alone except for Shigaru Miyamoto, Serizawa's old servant and now hers. Now even he was gone, she had sent him away for the night so she could speak with Steven.

Even know they remembered how it all began all those years ago back in the fifties when he had been a young man who stopped by on route to Cairo to say hello to her and to his best friend Daisuke Serizawa. How things had changed since then. It seemed only yesterday that he'd been taken to an emergency hospital where she found him and asked what could have brought this upon them. Now they were both old, very old, though Steven knew that she had aged better than himself.

Wrapped in her kimono, Emiko had a few wrinkles, but her was still glossy black and she was still strong. Steven, on the other hand was as old as he felt: an old gray and white haired man. Part of his beard was still black and he, thank God, still had a full head of hair, but that was it. A large robust man nonetheless, he still put in his share to fight the good fight. Perhaps it was the stress of the job that aged him. Emiko, on the other hand, had only had to proofread her father and brother's kaijuology books. After the Godzilla, or Gojira, incident they didn't bring her along for fear of her safety.

"Some more tea, Steve?"

"Yes, I would be glad Emiko."

She poured him some tea and asked "How much longer will you be able to stay?"

He took a slight sip. "Not much longer. Hayashida, Kyle and myself are all going to go on a mission to find Gojira. Hopefully, Miki will come along too. That's where I come in. Hayashida has been unable to convince her and so he'd asked me to talk to her. She's against what we are going to do."

Emiko sighed. "She reminds me of my father, God rest his soul." She looked at a picture frame she had on the living room mantle. It was just as she remembered him, as if he had always looked the way he had in 1954. "Do you remember when Gojira first came? He was constantly pleading for his life, that Gojira might be spared. It wasn't just for the desire for scientific knowledge, but the way he felt all life to be precious.

"He was always torn between Gojira's life and the lives of his victims. Especially with Shinkichi; his own parents had died when Gojira first attacked Odo Island. When Serizawa's Oxygen Destroyer killed Gojira, father thought that that was it, although he hoped against all hope that somewhere in he world Gojira would rise again. While he studied the kaiju that appeared from time to time, he died before Gojira's return. And I remember how Shinkichi died when he went to see him escape from Mt Mihara through Mt Fuji. Now all I have are my nephew Kenichi and niece Yukari."

"It is hard to be alone," said Steven. "Kyle is the only person I have left. I couldn't imagine what I would do if I were to lose him as well. With his brother and their parents dead, we're the only family we have left. Though I sometimes worry about him. Sometimes it feels that he's drifting farther away from me every day."

Emiko poured herself more tea. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about him. Its Miki you should worry about."

Steven was puzzled. "What do you mean?"

Emiko sipped her tea. "You have most certainly noticed that they are in love with each other?"

"Of course I've noticed Emiko."

"Well, then," she replied "You certainly know who that doomed love reminds you of."

On understanding, Steven's face grew grim and his eyes narrowed. "You and Ogata…."

"Yes. I'm worried about her. She is a good girl and she has her whole life ahead of her, but she is throwing it all away with her desire for Kyle. She's throwing it away the same way I threw my life with Serizawa away for Ogata. I remember to this day just how stupid I felt for leaving Serizawa, no... Daisuke's side." She reached for the table between herself and Steven for a picture of Dr. Daisuke Serizawa. There he was in black and white, stern and proud in his lab coat, an eye patch over the eye he had lost in defense of the motherland. As she held it, her hands began to tremble.

"He loved me, he loved me with all his heart, and I was too selfish to notice. I was going behind his back with Ogata, saying that I had always thought of Daisuke as a brother. And yet I still remember when Ogata came up from the ocean and told me 'He said, "Be happy together."' You remember that day Steve; you were there. You were his friend." Emiko began to cry and her tears fell on Serizawa's picture. "Daisuke Serizawa not only sacrificed his life for peace, but for me. He loved me so much that he was willing to let me go, let me be happy even if it wasn't with him.

"Now it's happening with Miki. Steve, I've met your grandson and he is a good boy. But he and Miki will never be happy together. She thinks that somehow love will magically triumph. It won't. Ogata said he loved me and I believed him. And for it, I lost the man who was to be my husband and my heart. Ogata never married me. Father saw to that; he sent him out of the house and told him to never come back because of their conflicting opinions about Gojira. And that is why Miki and Kyle can be together but will never stay together. You know that Steve. Please, if you love either of them, then you must tell them that."

"Emiko," said Steven, "You must know that I can't intervene. They must make their own choices."

There were some things about American culture that Emiko had never understood and this was one of them. "Then you may have just doomed both of them to sorrow Steve. I know that from experience. You didn't intervene when you had the chance when it was Ogata and myself. I read your book. When you spoke of how when we were going to Odo Island and you saw me and Ogata speaking to each other, you calmly called it the usual love triangle-not to mention have me call the beast Godzilla. I'm warning you, one night of passion for Miki will bring her a lifetime full of pain."

Steven sat in stone silence before speaking up. "Hmmm... that's something to think about. More tea, please?"

Emiko poured him another cup. "Of course."

/o0o\

While Emiko Yamani and Steven Martin sat drinking tea in Tokyo, someone else sat in a plane on her way to America. While her country was small, even backwards to outsiders, Princess Salno knew that she had to make the best impression she could on the President of the United States and part of that included chartering a private plane to take her to America. It had been hard, Selginia had only one modern airport, but her Minister of State had done it. She smiled. Father, she thought to herself, you chose the ministers of our kingdom well.

She also thought to herself that the survival of the planet might hang in the balance. She shifted in her seat and looked outside the window to the ocean below, deep in that grim thought. Then she shot up with a jolt. She could have sworn that she had she had seen a huge hawk sized moth flying with two tiny women on it outside the window near the wing. She shook the thought away. She must have been imagining things.

"No you weren't."

"What?" exclaimed the Princess. She got up from her seat and looked around. "Who's there? Where are you?"

"We're down here," said two beautiful feminine voices said in perfect unison. "We've come to help you. You needn't be afraid."

She turned around to where she had heard the voices half expecting to find nothing, as if proof she had gone mad. But no, she saw something... different.

On one of the plane's seats was the pink hawk sized moth that she seen from outside. It seemed almost too beautiful to be real, as if it was the perfect toy. On the seat, were two tiny women. They were perfectly formed adult women, sisters, but they were no more six inches tall. They were both Asian in appearance and very beautiful. One was slightly taller than the other. She was dressed in red and gold silks that made up her billowing, voluminous sleeves and her dress. Her body was covered in red armor with gold etchings that was fitted to her curves and had etched beneath her chest was a cross. On her shoulders was silver from which hung golden tassels and on her head was a golden crown. Her name was Moll.

Her shorter, younger sister was dressed in blue and silver silk that, like her sister, made her billowing, voluminous sleeves and dress. Her body was covered with blue and silver armor that was fitted to her curves and had a cross etched beneath her chest. On her shoulders was silver inlaid with gold from which hung deep blue tassels and on her head was a golden crown. Her name was Lora.

Holding each other's hands, they both looked up at Princess Selena Salno. As she looked sown at the two fairies, she knew who they were.

"You... y-you're the Elias..."

"Yes we are," replied the priestesses of Mothra. "Your highness, you go to warn against opening the prison of the King of Terror, do you not?"

"Yes," replied Princess Salno. She had heard of the Elias, but she had never thought that she would meet them. Part of her was only more afraid. It only proved the direness of her mission. "I take it that you already know the details?"

"Yes, we know the details," said Moll. "We know and we also seek to prevent King Ghidorah from being released. When we saw that you had the same mission, we decided that we would go with you in order to help in any way we can."

Salno sat in the seat next to them. "I'll be glad to accept your help. You and Mothra have stood by humanity many times. With your help, I'm sure that we'll be able to convince the President. But what about your sister, Belvera? Isn't she coming?"

Both looked distraught at hearing that and looked at the ground. Finally, one sister, Lora, spoke up. "Though the three of us collectively make up the Elias, we all go our separate ways. Belvera and Battra stayed home to guard our island. As for Mothra herself, she has gone into space to intercept the asteroid. If we fail to reason with the President, she will keep the asteroid from being opened by any means necessary. We do however, have another plan..."

Princess Salno sat back in her seat. "Dear fairies, please tell me of it."

Chapter Three

"Hideo, do you need any more help with your schoolwork?"

"No, thank you sensei," said the grateful student. "You've been a big help."

"Any time," replied Steven Martin. Martin got up from the floor where Hideo was doing his homework and looked around. There were about a dozen or so young students in the classroom. It was a large rather empty room with hard wood floors, ordinary curtains, and light colored walls. There were children at tables studying math, literature, and zener cards; just a few tables, some potted plants, and a young girl sitting on the floor with eyes closed in concentration in one of three plastic pyramids.

It was business as usual at the Psionics Research Institute in Tokyo, Japan, the world's foremost center for psi research. Being psychic wasn't easy; in the past, many children growing up with that power often thought they were going insane and a few ultimately did. It was thanks to the Institute that the psychics could now go out into the open, even if there was still over discrimination.

It had been opened in 1986 as a place where young psis could live and learn in an understanding environment. There, they would not only learn how to use and develop their powers-along with more traditional subjects like reading and writing-but, more importantly, how to use them responsibly. That school had been the first of its kind and it welcomed children from all over the world, though for unknown reasons a large percentage of children born with psychic powers were Japanese, and Japanese girls at that. Martin thought about that. It's like why all the kaiju only attack Japan.

At least it gave people something to talk about.

At that moment he was in a class that Miki taught from time to time in the Psionics Research Center. She was a fine teacher and the students all loved her, but she was called away many times to help against Godzilla. And when she wasn't doing that, she was teaching young psychics how to use their powers to combat giant monsters as she did in Psychic Center, UNGCC's psionics branch. It wasn't too bad, she often taught students she had known as children in the Research Center. She was glad to do it; after all, if they didn't go there then who knows what they might use their gifts for. Terrorist groups like Red Bamboo or General Zador's Cobra? There was always Interpol, but Miki didn't trust them one little bit.

In any case Martin was glad to be caretaker for the young charges of the Research Center. Miki was his protégé after all. But he could only wonder what she would say when she came and he finally told her the real reason he was there. That is when she came in through the doors of the room. Her students warmly greeted her; some of the younger ones ran and hugged her. She said hello and hugged them back. She then saw that her mentor Martin was there. He should be; he had promised to look after them until she came back. She went to speak to him and hear what he had to say.

"You can't be serious." Miki paced back and forth as well as she could in her tiny, cramped, book filled office, her arms nervously crossed. "I never thought Hayashida would really do this. Kyle yes, Hayashida no. Alright, one more time, please?"

"Hayashida's telepathy amplifier is ready for use," said Martin. "It will be placed on Godzilla to control him. But for it to work, a powerful psychic will be needed to control him. As you're the strongest & best trained and have the most experience with Godzilla you're the natural candidate. With Godzilla under control, he'll no longer pose a threat. What is your response to it?"

Miki had a sad, faraway look in her eyes and she bit her lower lip. With her arms still crossed, she leaned her back against a bookshelf. "I... I don't know. I mean I know you're right, I know you're point... but... I just can't do it." She smiled a sad smile and looked at her G-Force cap. It had the logo: A UN globe with an outline of an angry Godzilla in it with spears at the globe's side. "Y'know, its kinda funny. I know how dangerous Godzilla is. One of the reasons that I wanted to join UNGCC, even as a child, was to find a way to stop Godzilla without hurting him. And now that I've found a way, I can't even do that. It... It just doesn't feel right controlling him."

Martin put a hand on her shoulder and sighed. "That's because it isn't right. But it's better than killing him, better than G-Force's toxins, mechas, and armies. I'm going with Kyle and Hayashida as soon they spot him. If you don't come that's your choice to make. But if you do, many people will be very grateful."

Miki looked at the floor. "Yeah..."

Back outside Miki's office, with the psychic children, were the two new teacher's aides. Before, she had come they had played with the two children happily; now they were both standing in grim silence aloof from the children around them. Twin sisters, they looked at the office intently. Then they glanced at each other. And heard each other's thoughts.

Moll, thought one, she is the one isn't she?

Yes Lora. She will be the one that makes or breaks the world. The choices she will ultimately make will save the world or destroy it. The coming battle and the guidance she will give the King of all Monsters is the reason she was born and the reason we took it on ourselves her to teach her all those years ago.

I see, thought the other. She must know about her mission when the time is right. But we'll have to leave. Salno will be worried, and I so want to return to my real size!

Agreed sister

/o0o\

Deep in G-Force Alpha's cavernous main hanger stood Commander Aso. He was pacing back and forth along the catwalk overlooking the technicians as they worked below him on the latest weapon in the arsenal against Godzilla. It was a giant robot much like Red Ronin, Cyber-Saur, and Cyborg Whale from years ago. They had been part of the then new born G-Force's plan of Steel Reign and although the plan eventually failed all but Red Ronin were still in active service. All built by Dr. Yoshino Yoshizawa, who still designed all G-Force's weapons and equipment-including their newest robot-, the Steel Reign robots were all made in the late eighties as part of a daring scheme to kill Godzilla.

Yet for all Dr Yoshizawa had done for all of them, Aso didn't like her. In reality Aso just didn't like scientists; he was a man who wanted things done yesterday and didn't have the patience for scientists to make their calculations. In fact the only scientists he did like, on occasion, were ones whose discoveries had practical use such as creation of maser weapons, super vehicles, and mechas-or battle robots.

He looked back and remembered G-Force's first mecha in the late eighties. It was called Angela and Aso had derisively called it a robotic Barbie. Female shaped or not, Angela had proven useful against Godzilla and other kaiju until it, or "she" as its creators referred to it, was finally destroyed. In fact he was in the very same hanger now overlooking another mecha where Angela had been revealed to the world years ago.

However, Aso was slightly pleased that this mecha's design was strictly utilitarian. Angela had been useful but G-Force was a military organization not an art show. It hadn't been ready to fight Godzilla that week ago he had attacked. It would be several more months, possibly even years, before this technological titan was ready for testing, let alone combat, but when it was Godzilla would have to watch out for the Mobile Operations Godzilla Universal Expert Robot Aero type, or MOGUERA. How Aso would relish that moment! He almost wished that Hayashida's telepathy amplifier, and even Kyle Martin's toxin, would fail so he could get a chance to send his steel soldier against the monster.

Hey, Aso could dream!

Chapter Four

"Sir, we've a confirmed location."

The sub commander rushed towards the sonar man's console and looked over his shoulder at the screen "Are you sure?"

"I'm positive sir," replied the sonar man. "Godzilla is headed due west in a straight direction. At that rate he will arrive at Infant Island in about four days."

"Alright." The sub commander, Yoshio Takarada, turned around in the sub's cramped interior and looked at communications officer. "Alert UNGCC at once. Tell them Godzilla's exact coordinates and estimated ETA."

The subordinate nodded and said, "Hai."

Submarine Commander Yoshio Takurada twisted past the various dimly lit work stations, past the chairs to reach his own where he could oversee the various operations of his submarine, the Cyborg Whale. Unlike the westerners among his crew, Takurada was perfectly at home in the cramped quarters of the sub. Having grown up in the usual Japanese apartment for a family of four, which was the size of a western two-car garage, he wasn't bothered by enclosed spaces that left space wasting westerners claustrophobic. Takurada was, in fact, rather proud of commanding the vaguely sperm whale shaped Cyborg Whale, one of the finest submarines ever built.

After the Mu Empire surrendered to the surface world it paid the UN reparations for damage done with the gift of the very submarine that Takurada was commanding now. Its task was to constantly monitor Godzilla so that coastal cities could be evacuated in time. Yet sometimes, the captain asked himself what did Godzilla think of the sub constantly following him. An annoying pest undeserving of his attention? Hopefully that was all. As strong as Takurada's sub was, it would never survive an encounter with the King of the Monsters.

Thus now Takurada was stuck keeping tabs on Godzilla. But if that was the part destiny gave him to play in the Monster Wars then he had no problem with it.

/o0o\

A television screen showed a reporter in front of a vast crowd of angry, marching, sign waving protesters in front of the presidential mansion. Some of the protesters' signs read "Not another Dinosaur killer!" and "Alien tech=NOT SAFE!" The bottom of the screen showed the Asian reporter's name and that she was ready to give her report as it happened.

"Hello. This is Yuri Tachibana for BS Digital Q, United World Television News affiliate, here at the White House. America's President and his administration are under assault by those protesters behind me right now. While President Devlin Emmerich's approaches to foreign policy and the environment, as well as his go it alone agendas, have garnered opposition, his decision to open a recently discovered meteor in the belief that it might contain alien technology that could advance American technology has generated a firestorm of controversy.

"Though it has only been announced six months ago by the White House Press Secretary, it began almost a year ago when a routine NASA scientific team found a strange meteor in the asteroid belt. Closer examination has shown that the meteor is in fact an artificial construct and that a metallic sphere is at the center. The consensus has been that it is of extraterrestrial origin. While it has been theorized that life, both intelligent and non-intelligent, is very common in the universe, the only extraterrestrial civilization that Earth has encountered has been the Mysterians who tried and failed to invade Earth in the late 1950s. It is unknown whether or not the meteor and the sphere were created by the Mysterians or by some other alien race.

"The sphere is of enormous importance to the global community but the debate raging is how it is to be used. The United Nation General Assembly and Scientific Committee has argued that the meteor must first be subjected to an in-depth study and that all possible precautions must be taken before further action can be considered. The risk that the meteor might pose and the culture shock imposed on the human race by yet another revelation of another alien civilization are deemed to be too great for the meteor to be handled in any other way.

"However, this runs directly counter to the White House's stance on the issue. The President has insisted several times that the United States having found the meteor has the sole right to decide what will or will not be done with it. He has also stated in one interview that he hopes that whatever technology that is found inside might advance America's own, just as the study of reversed engineered Mysterian technology in the form of the Moguera robots advanced Japan's own. Despite contrary world opinion, protests here and around the world, scathing condemnation by the UN General Assembly, and the repeated requests made by the Secretary General himself to not open the meteor right away, the President has stood firm on the issue of nation's rights and that he will decide what is best for his country. Even so, he has agreed to one last meeting with the Secretary General and with Princess Selina Salno of Selginia, the strongest opponent against opening the meteor, to discuss the issue.

"Now, its time for some feedback." Miss Tachibana turned to a protestor who was holding up a sign that read "No more Mysterians." She looked at the man and asked "Sir, you are protesting the President's course of action in opening the meteor. Would you care to tell us why?"

The man looked at the microphone before looking at the camera. "I'll tell you why. We don't know what's in that meteor, maybe its some gizmos, maybe it isn't. For all we know, its some trap those Mysterians left there to get us. We need to check it out completely before doing anything else. Thank you."

"Alright, now how about you?" Miss Tachibana gave the microphone to an old woman.

"It's simple really. I don't like what the president's doing, but then I don't like him one bit! He's slashed social security and that leaves me penniless. He's cut funding for Head Start and that means hell for my grandson! I'll do anything to make that republican redneck miserable."

Yuri raised an eyebrow. "Thank you, and how about you, sir?"

A man with a clipboard and wearing a suit turned to face the camera. "I'm doing this not because of what might be in the meteor but because of how the President is handling the situation. He sees this as America's decision alone. The idea of lone countries died in WWII and was buried in the Mysterian invasion. If something this important happens, something like the discovery of a cache of alien technology centuries ahead of our own, then the choice belongs to the world. Yet despite all this, despite the UN's repeated demands, the President, like some imperialist dictator, refuses to see that. He is setting a dangerous precedent and I hope he comes to his senses."

"Thank you. This is Yuri Tachibana for United World Television News, here at the White House."

Even as the protesters were marching back and forth in front of the White House its master was on private helicopter headed for Camp David. He was watching the broadcast at that very moment and was angry. He clawed his chair's upholstery and scowled at the large television set in front of him. "I don't believe this. I'm doing it for them and this is what I get? All I do for them and they call me a dictator!"

He got up and went to a small wet bar where he poured himself a drink. He looked out the window to the countryside below. "Frank, y'want one?"

Vice-President Franklin Smith sat on his chair, his gaze on the television screen. "No thanks boss."

President Emmerich took a sip of whiskey. "Frank, get White House Security on the phone. I want those hippies out there."

The Vice President was stunned. "Are you sure? They're just some weirdos, totally harmless. Besides sir, that might reduce your popularity; they'll scream freedom of speech."

"And who protects that freedom of speech?" growled the President. "But you're probably right. The last thing I need right now is more protest. Just tell security to be ready if I give the word. You think Nixon had it this bad?"

"I don't know sir."

"Just change the channel; I don't want more of this."

"Alright." Vice-President Smith did as he was told and found what seemed to be a nature documentary. It was a scene in a warm swampy bayou.

But then the reporter said, "This here is all that's left of the Florida Everglades. The rest was destroyed as part of a program initiated by President Devlin Emerich. It is a great tragedy that this was destroyed in mere months, this, which nature has been building for billions of years. While the opening of the meteor has drawn much protest, there have been some outcry for this as-"

The Vice-President fearfully changed the channel. "Sorry sir!" However the new scene was even worse as it showed the President of the United States of America being burned in effigy by Americans for having clear cut the redwoods.

"Turn that thing off!"

"Yes sir!"

/o0o\

A world away on Infant Island were Professor Hayashida and Kyle Martin. The two, followed by Lieutenant Santos' platoon, were trudging through the dark eerie caves that led through the cliffs that separated the beach from the rest of the island. Having been to Infant Island before, Hayashida was leading the way.

That was not to say that there weren't dangers. There were carnivorous plants and islander war patrols, though often merciful, were quick to use their swords against intruders. Not to mention how easily a person could get lost in the caves. However, both Kyle and Martin were sure that they would be alright and could count on the Infant Islander's help. Godzilla would soon come and they would need all the help that they could get if either Project Telepathy or Project Toxin was to work. And they had better wor-

"WHO GOES THERE?"

The G-Force soldiers had already unholstered their weapons by the time that the voice was finished talking. The men nervously looked around dark and eerie cave, looking for their would-be attacker with guns ready. Lieutenant Santos held his men in check and ordered them not to fire as he saw Hayashida step forward.

"WHO GOES THERE!?"

"My name is Hayashida," replied the professor. "I'm the leader of this expedition. We come with peaceful intentions and mean no harm."

"LIER!" screamed the voice. "IF YOU MEAN NO HARM THEN WHY DO YOU CARRY WEAPONS?"

"We only carry these for self defense I assure-"

"SILENCE!" In the darkness, there glowed two red eyes. The armed men there looked on nervously and they heard the voice again "YOU WILL LEAVE THIS PLACE. NOW."

"And if we don't?" asked one soldier haughtily.

"THEN I'LL DO THIS."

The soldier froze as he felt something touch his shoulder and then he heard it.

"Boo."

"AAAAAGGGHHHH!" The whole cave was soon ablaze with gunfire as the frightened men opened fire on their unseen assailant. Soon enough, they heard their angry lieutenant's orders—and curses and vows of assigning them all latrine duty for a month—and the guns died down. As for the enemy, she was no where to be seen, but she was heard.

Astride her aerial steed, Belvera was laughing and soon enough they saw her as Garu-Garu the cyborg dragon flew slowly out of the dark. She had to wait a while before she was in control of herself. She adjusted her all black leather armor and black dress. She then readjusted her black crown and the long flowing auburn hair beneath it. She was just finished rearranging herself when she chanced to look at the angry men glaring at her. Then she began laughing again.

"Ha ha! Belvera the bad's still got it!" She stopped laughing when her hand went to the embossed black cross on her armor underneath her chest. "Sorry guys, really am. Well… actually I'm not. You should have seen the looks on your faces!"

Kyle went up to her and said, "Yeah whatever, cut the nonsense. We gotta talk."

"Yeah I know, Godzilla's comin' you want to use your brainwash gizmo. Yadda, yadda, yadda."

Kyle was stunned. "You know?"

Belvera rolled her eyes. "Well give the boy a gold medal. Of course I know. Why do you think I'm part of the Elias and you're not? I sense these things."

"Oh." Kyle was silent for a while. "Then can you lead us to the village? We want to get set up."

"Sure, whatever. Just follow me."

"OK Belvera..."

And so Kyle Martin, Professor Hayashida, and the G-Force soldiers trudged along in humiliated silence. Soon enough they replaced the safeties on their weapons and were again walking through the caverns towards the village. Near the back, however, an interesting conversation was going among the walking soldiers.

"Private," asked the Lieutenant, "were you scared when Belvera was on you shoulder?"

Private Orlando Johnson who had fired the first shot looked at his commander. "What? Yes, sir. As sure as I'm from New Orleans I was scared."

"That better be the last time Private. You're a soldier and a soldier obeys orders. I gave no order to open fire. Things are calm enough now, but you have to remain in control at all times. One more outburst like that and you'll be peeling every potato in G-Force. Understood?"

Shamefaced, Private Johnson nodded. "Yes, sir. Sir, permission to speak candidly."

Perhaps feeling that shame was punishment enough, Santos said, "Permission granted."

Johnson looked forward at the Elias. "I was wondering what's the story with that Belvera woman? Sir, how come she's so small?"

"She a fairy. Its magic."

"You didn't just say..."

"The m-word Private? Yes I said magic."

Private Orlando Johnson shifted uncomfortably. "But sir, there ain't no magic. Right?"

Lieutenant Santos grinned. "Soldier, after Godzilla first appeared all the scientists were going crazy. They were saying 'this is impossible, he should have collapsed under his own weight, our theories say this.' Orlando, you're new to G-Force but when you're in G-Force you learn that the impossible is very real. Just don't talk about the m-word around Hayashida. Y'know, the whole science vs. magic thing."

"Sure." Private Johnson was more at ease as he looked around the cave he was walking through. He even smiled. "Y'know... I always wanted to come here when I was a kid. Mothra got me into kaiju and I was always going to the school library to find books on Infant Island. Never found much; I was all ghetto! 'Least it was better than the colored only my granddaddy knew."

"I hear you. I remember when I decided to join G-Force. The men in my family have always been in the military. My grandpa and uncles wanted me to join. They said it's my duty, it'll give me discipline. Joining G-Force… I got to make my family proud, make a difference, go on adventures all over the world, all that." The Lieutenant then made the sign of the cross. "And I don't have the guilt of killing someone."

Private Johnson moped. "Yeah, you just have to worry about the monster killing you."

Santos sighed. "Maldicion… Private, they've done the math. The odds of being killed by a kaiju in actual combat are lower than the odds of being killed by enemy fire in a regular army. Even in G-Force Africa with its fight against Apophis, a soldier can expect a good chance to survive. But then there Aso's G-Force Alpha and they're always going after Godzilla. And that's what we're going to do too…"

He sighed. "The fight is going to be so much easier when they finish MOGUERA."

"Yeah I guess that's true, sir. Sir, you're going to be the chief pilot, ain't you?"

On hearing that, Lieutenant Santos allowed himself a smile that went from ear to ear. "Damn straight!"

Private Johnson smiled for his commanding officer. "Yeah. Adventures for both of us in the Age of Monsters. Sir, do you know who came up with the phrase?"


Kyle Martin, who had been over hearing the conversation, looked over his shoulder at the two men. "It was my grandfather, Steven Martin. In the first edition of his book This is Tokyo, he came up with the phrase in his prologue."

"Thanks, sir," said Private Johnson. He began to walk in silence before whispering to his Lieutenant. "Sir, I don't like that guy. All he ever does is talk about Godzilla. With Miss. Seguesa it's different. She's nice and all that. But Kyle's always angry."

"Private," Lieutenant Santos whispered, "be careful he never hears you say that."

"Why?"

"You're new to this outfit so I'll tell you why," he whispered. "Y'know about Miss. Segeusa, right?" The Lieutenant saw the man nod and continued. "Well, she's always had her powers, even when she was a little kid. Just after Godzilla fell into Mt. Mihara in 1985, she said that he would return. It wasn't some vague phone pychic prediction, but it was with details, time, date, location. She said he would escape from Mt Mihara by means of Mt Fuji. Nobody believed her except Kyle's big brother Raymond Martin.

"He was a kaijuologist like his parents and went to study it, see if Godzilla really would come. Kyle told him not to go that he would die like their parents did. But he went anyway and was killed there. So ever since, Kyle's sworn that he'll have his revenge against Godzilla, sworn that he'll make him suffer for taking his brother away from him forever."

Private Johnson winced. "Man, no wonder he's so messed up."

"Yeah, but his grandpa is friends with Director Goodhue, so as long as Kyle doesn't go stark raving loony, he stays."

From far in front, Kyle frowned. As long as I don't go stark raving loony, eh? He had exceptionally good hearing and had thus heard what they had said.

Walking at his side, Hayashida had said, "What's the matter. Is it because what the two in the back said?"

Kyle was stunned. "You heard?"

"No," replied Hayashida, "But I know you very well and with Private Johnson being new here it makes sense that he would be told the story and you would react like that when he heard it."

Kyle gripped the straps of his backpack angrily. "Well how do you expect me to act. I'm not Captain Ahab. Godzilla poses a real threat and I'm just trying to protect innocent people from that threat."

Hayashida looked at Kyle grimly "Kyle, listen to me. You've always been one of my best students. You're father was one of the finest men that I had the honor of working with and your brother was my finest students. You can't disgrace their memories with petty revenge. They wouldn't want it."

Kyle Martin shot a surprised look at his mentor and had this to hear. "Yes, revenge. You think you're not doing it for vengeance, but I know better. I don't want you to make my mistakes. I know how you feel Kyle. Godzilla killed my parents in his 1954 attack. For years I was angry and wanted to kill Godzilla if he ever returned.

"That's what I thought when I created Gigamoth for the Rolisican government back in the seventies. Because of my stupid revenge, I was responsible for the deaths of hundreds and I even became what I had hated the most. I became the monster. While I was in Rolisica I saw some footage of a little boy whose parents had been killed by Gigamoth. He said on camera that Hayashida had killed his parents and that no matter what happened, he would have his revenge."

Kyle put a comforting hand on Hayashida's shoulder. "Professor, you didn't know. You couldn't have known what Gigamoth would have done."

"But I should have. Kyle, Godzilla is dangerous but you're grandfather's right. He isn't evil. You can't be angry with Godzilla for what happened, its pointless. It's like being angry at an earthquake, or a-"

"-Hurricane, or a tornado," angrily interrupted Kyle. "Just don't say anything. I get enough of that from grandfather AND from Miki. I don't need it from you! I was hoping that you could understand since we both went through the same thing, especially when you assigned me to make Project Toxin at R&D, but I guess I was wrong."

"Yes Kyle, I did assign you to Project Toxin, but not for this. Godzilla is dangerous he must be fought, but not for revenge. If you don't stop, it won't be Godzilla you poison, but your soul."

Chapter Five

It was good. Miki put the Hadrosaur Burger down andlooked to the rest of the Dinosaur World Foodcourt. There were several families, all the little kids with their dinosaur merchandise, asking to go on one more ride. Miki grinned one she heard one boy asking to go on the T-Rex Thunderbolt Coaster. Then she looked back at her meal: a Hadrosaur Burger, Cycad Fries, and Volcano Cola. Miki took another bite and was smiled at how the sandwiches were at last offering an all soy patty. Its hard to eat meat when you can feel the pain of every living thing. She softly smiled as she remembered the day when Akira Seguesa pulled the beef patty from his crying granddaughter's Miasaura Hatchling Meal all those years ago...

She remembered how she had gone from her home island, Odo, to the city of Hakata to visit her grandfather when she was a tiny little girl of eight. It was back in the early eighties. Ironic, her grandfather had left for the big city when her parents had stayed on a tiny island that was in the, to use American slang, the boondocks. She had stayed with her grandfather in his tiny apartment and had a happy time. He showed her all his belongings including a foreign book about Godzilla, or Gojira as she called him then. It was old and tattered. The pages were yellow at the edges and a few were ripped and folded. Little Miki innocently asked, "What's this grandpa?"

Akira Seguesa grinned. "Why that's a book about Gojira Miki."

Little Miki frowned. "But what are the kanji? I haven't learned them yet."

"That's because they're not kanji. They're English letters. The book was written by an American named Steven Martin."

"Really grandpa?" asked Miki. "This is from America?"

"Really."

"Wow! I didn't know you could read American."

"I can a read a little," said Akira. A smirk then spread across his face. "It's sure a lot easier than learning how to read in Japanese! But that's enough. Go to bed. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow, don't we?"

"We sure do grandpa! We're going to Dinosaur World!"

Indeed they did. Dinosaur World; whose fellow Dinosaur Lands were now found in Europe, Mexico, the US, and China; had been founded by Akira's old commanding officer, Yasuaki Shindo. He was not only Japan's resident financial genius whose all encompassing mega corporation, the Teiyo Group, had made Japan a economic powerhouse. Shindo was also a hopeless dinosaur enthusiast. Disbelievers only had to look inside his office at the dinosaur mural by Charles R. Knight. He had always admired them, even as a child, and after the Pacific War in which he had seen a dinosaur on Lagos, his love for the terrible lizards had only grown. Dinosaur World was his tribute to that mighty beast who had saved his entire garrison.

The next day little Miki and her grandfather, Akira Seguesa, went there to Dinosaur World. They went on the Icthyosaur Submarine, the Pteranadon Skyhooks, the Mosasaur Logjam, and the various theropod rollar coasters. Miki had even asked to go on the T-Rex Thunderbolt. Grandpa wouldn't let her; she wasn't old enough. Regardless it was fun at Japan's world famous dino themed theme park.

In time, the day grew long and they had to leave. But before they did, little Miki's grandfather walked to the Dinosaur World Main Plaza where everyone could see him. Her grandfather stood up on a platform underneath a Tyrannosaur skeleton where he knew everyone could see him. He ran a hand through his black & grey hair and checked his all white suit. He clutched a cross pendant that hung around his neck and put a bullhorn to his lips. He said:

"Here at Dinosaur Land there's one you forgot. The one from Lagos, the one I saw because I was part of the Lagos Garrison. Yes, a long time ago, in a far off land, I saw a real live dinosaur. You don't know about this dinosaur, you weren't there.

"But I certainly do!" he sharply said. Some people looked at him strangely and walked away. Then Akira's demeanor softened. "You call him Gojira know and think he died some thirty years ago at the bottom of Tokyo Bay. He didn't, he could never die. No, he's close by and watches over all of us. I'm not sure where he hides now but he can see us. And if we ever become helpless, or desperate, Gojira will come back to save us from tragedy... and disaster. Just as he did before on that doomed World War II blood filled battle field we once faced."

Then Akira's face grew grim and so did his voice. "You think that there's absolutely nothing to fear. Our country seems peaceful and you think nothing could possibly happen to us. Yes the kaiju attacks have tapered off and we haven't faced a threat close to them in years but we're in danger! You call him a monster but we abandoned him after what he did for us on Lagos, and you have the gall to ask why he hate's us!? One day, however, there will come something so horrible, that you'll beg that 'monster' to save you because he, Gojira, will be the only one able to do so. Great danger is coming! You must all prepare yourselves for what will happen!"

After that final outburst Akira had been forcibly hauled off by Dinosaur World security and would have spent the night in jail if the police hadn't taken pity on him for Miki's sake. They let him go with just a fine. When Akira and his granddaughter went back to his apartment, they went back in silence. For hours they went noiselessly about their tasks until little Miki broke the silence.

Putting down the dish she had just been washing, she looked at Akira. "Grandpa," asked the girl, "Did you really see Gojira?"

Akira placed a dried plate back in the cupboard. "Yes I did Miki, on Lagos."

A curious look crossed her face. "Well, what happened?"

Akira Segeusa felt himself taken back to when he had been Private Akira Segeusa in the Imperial Japanese Army, taken back to the last days of World War II. "Yes, I saw him on Lagos. It's a small island between two larger islands called Kwajolin and Liat, in the south Pacific. It was during the Pacific War when I was a soldier in the service of the Emperor. We had fought long and hard to keep those islands. Wasn't much good; in the end the forces on Kwajolin and Liat had been completely destroyed. We knew we were going to die too but we were determined to make the Americans victory a costly one. Major Shindo said, 'Even until the last moment we still have to believe in our final victory over the enemy.'

"Then he came," Akira wistfully said. "But not Gojira as we know him know, but as Gojirasaurus. He came and saved us all from certain death and we were all very grateful. Afterwards, we were asking what was it, why was it helping us? I remembered the stories the old men from Odo Island told is and said we should call it Gojira, because deep in my heart that was what I knew him to be. Major Shindo agreed and even drafted him into the service of the Emperor! And then...then we abandoned him..."

"What!?" exclaimed Miki.

"Yes," said Akira blinking back his tears. "We betrayed his trust. When he became the true Gojira and wreaked his vengeance on Tokyo, I knew we all deserved it. It was all our fault."

Miki hugged her grandfather to comfort him, buy when she saw him dry his tears, she asked him something else. "Grandpa, why didn't you ever tell me before?"

"Your father. That son of mine didn't like growing up with a Gojira 'sympathizer,' especially since we lived on Odo. Some of the more superstitious folk said that the two of us were in cahoots. After Gojira returned, the islanders went crazy thinking that they had angered him with having forgotten the old ways. They even talked about sending maiden sacrifices again. And I remember that you once volunteered!"

Miki smiled. "Yeah grandpa, I like Gojira."

Akira's smile quickly turned to a frown. "Well many others don't. And that's were it comes in. Your father hates Gojira but also fears him; that's why he stays on Odo Island, and that's why I left. When he let you come to stay with me he asked me not to pull any funny business with you. I can only wonder what he'll do know.

"But I'm getting ahead of myself. There is more that I must tell you, Miki much more. You know of the Elias, correct?"

Miki nodded, "Yes grandpa."

"I not only know of them, I met them as well. You look rather stunned Miki, but it's true. Soon after the battle on Lagos when the motherland sent ships to bring us home, we passed a storm and I was washed overboard. I eventually found myself on Infant Island. I'd heard of it, all Asia had heard of it but nobody had ever seen it. But I knew I was there because I saw the Elias there. They told me that the girl back on Odo whom I loved would one day be my wife and that we would one day have a granddaughter. They showed me this... " He held the cross around his neck in his hand. "... and told me that that granddaughter would have a vital role to play in the age to come."

"What else did they say?" asked Miki.

Akira smiled. "They said you would ask that. They also said all in due time, that one day they would go to you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you." Akira then held her hand. "Miki you can... sense things, right? You can hear other people's thoughts?"

His granddaughter was visibly uncomfortable. She looked away from him towards the soapsuds on her hands in silence. It was not only that such directness was rather rude in Japanese culture, but she just didn't want to answer the question at all.

"Can you or can't you? I won't tell anyone, but please answer."

Miki was looking down at the floor. "Yes. Just a little. Is... Is that, bad grandpa?"

"No. It's rather good. It will be hard, but you've been given a great gift, that others can only dream of. That gift will be very important and will be able to help many people."

"Really?"

"Yes Miki. I know it'll be difficult being so different and all, but you're going to have to believe that you were born with this power for a reason. Do you promise to use that power to help people when you grow up?"

Miki smiled a sad smile. "Alright grandpa."

But it wouldn't be that simple.

Miki remembered what happened next, when she returned home to Odo to her parents, how she lay on her tatami mat in the dead of night hearing her parents argue. They had closed the sliding screen door and tried to spoke softly so that Miki wouldn't hear, but it was no good. Even if they had been on the other side of Odo, she could still have heard them.

"This is all your fault, I should never have let you talk me into this!"

"My fault? Whose father went and made a fool of himself at Dinosaur World!"

"That's my point. You said she should know her grandfather, it could bring us all closer together. Who knows what he might have told her. 'Gojira's not evil, he's just misunderstood.' Hah! If anything father should know what that monster is."

"Husband, you're not saying that you think he's the real Gojira? Do that and you're no better than your father."

"Don't you start with me woman! ...Sometimes I wish she could have been Gojira's sacrifice so that he could have eaten her. I wish that Miki had never been born."

"... You didn't say that... Tell me you didn't say that!"

"Why shouldn't I? You can't honestly say that you like that little witch, with her witchcraft or whatever it is that she does, can you?"

"You will take that back right now! She's your daughter! I don't care if you think her a witch. You can't say that about her!"

"Hmmph. You say that, but deep inside, you feel it to. It's the same thing that I feel. You fear her don't you?

"What was that wife, I can't hear you above all your silence."

Then softer than a cherry blossom hitting the water "I fear her."

That was the last straw for Miki. She ran out of the house crying. She didn't know where she would run to as long as it was away from a father who hated her and a mother who feared her. She had never asked for the power of ESP and she didn't want it! She didn't want to be a freak, an outcast, hated and despised by everyone on the island. She didn't want to know and feel all the pain and all the sufferings around her as her own. She knew that Momoko, the girl that lived alone with her uncle, was forced by that uncle to do things with him that a child shouldn't even know about. She knew that Ichiro, a boy who had just come back from Honshu, came back knowing that he was diagnosed with an incurable disease and only had three months to live. She knew that Ken, a boy who seemingly lived the perfect life with his parents, was regularly abused by his mother.

She didn't want this curse! She just wanted the voices to go away, to just go away! She finally stopped running at the edge of a cliff. It was high up and it overlooked the sea. If she jumped to her death, then the voices would no longer ever bother her. She could think of nothing else; she didn't even notice the mountain that had appeared where there had been none before. If she took her life, she would be free forever from the torments of the voices...

She remembered all the stories of samurai choosing to die with honor rather than live with disgrace. Her grandfather had been a soldier in the service of the Emperor. Was he any different from those who had served their lords unto death? If so samurai blood was in her veins. Though just a child, little Miki looked up at the moonless cloudy sky and then down at the waves crashing beneath the steep cliff. Could she do it, would she do it?

No.

No. She couldn't do it. She remembered the Buddhist tales she'd been told that children who died were tormented by a she-demon that would release them only if they built a tower of stones that would reach from hell to heaven. True, the dead children were aided by a Buddhist monk, and if her grandfather's religion was true all children went to heaven, but even so Miki did not want to take any chance and spend any time in any hell. Indeed, if she were to die, her grandfather would be in a hell.

She turned away to go back to her home, as much as she loathed it, when she slipped. Before she knew it she slipped and lost her balance and fell backwards off the cliff. Blindly groping, she managed to grab a vine hanging from the side. Terrified beyond reason she could only scream and panic. She didn't want die! She didn't want to die! But her grip on the vine slowly loosened, she felt herself slide down in sickening lurches. She felt tears run down her cheeks as she looked downwards and realized that nobody would come in time and that this was the end.

Then she fell.

But it was not the end. Her screaming and falling were stopped by an explosion of pain and darkness and a bone jarring thump. Miki felt a strange wetness over her body as if she had been splattered all over the rocks. What? Had she been?! Was she... dead? She was too frightened to think for who knows how long, but think she did. And the first thought was, But if I'm dead...How can I be thinking at all? As terrified as she was she opened her eyes, partially thinking that she would see the child tormenting demoness of legend.

But she did not. She saw she was on a small rock outcropping of some kind. She wasn't sure, it was so dark. Trembling, she got up and looked down at and felt the muddy dirt of the outcropping. She looked away and saw it was near the cliff and over a hundred feet above the crashing waves below. Little Miki saw the four rock spikes jutting out from the main body of it; they were almost like giant fingers. She walked towards the edge and saw that the entire rock outcropping was hovering in midair! Miki felt her jaw drop and her eyes go wide. This is impossible! she thought as stumbled back on her backside. Then the "rock" began moving...

In panic she looked around and saw that the "outcrop" was attached to something else, something much, much, bigger. She followed the "outcrop" and saw to where it led. The outcrop was a hand and the attaching place was an arm, which led to a body. A living creature that huge, Miki could only think to herself that it was even more impossible, but it was there, and the only thing that huge was... Gojira. She was in Gojira's hand.

The beast soon lifted her up towards the side of the cliff and placed his hand on its edge. Miki mutely saw this and slid off his huge hand and back to the ground. Back to having solid earth underneath her feet, she looked back at Gojira slightly trembling. She couldn't see him well due to the moonless cloudy night, but she knew it was him. It was Gojira who had saved her, just as he had her grandfather.

Gojira looked down at the human, unsure of what to make of her. She was a hatchling; he knew that. Were even human children so mad as to take their own lives? She may have felt some gratitude; she shouldn't, she amused him that was all.

Miki smiled. "Maybe Gojira, but you saved me. So thanks anyway!"

Gojira rolled his eyes, the foolish hatch-What! She understood his thoughts?!

"Yeah, I can do that. I was born like that, I can hear what people think, and with you I guess I can make you hear what I say."

This was impossible...

Miki smiled. "Just because its impossible Gojira, doesn't mean it can't be true. You're real; you're really real! Just like my grandpa said, you saved me just like you saved him." Miki sensed a perplexity emanating from the monster. "I'll show you who he is." Miki closed her eyes in concentration as she sent mental pictures of her grandfather as he was now and then as he had looked on Lagos.

Gojira began to growl as the memory of that cursed traitor entered his mind. Miki saw this and blurted, "Sorry Gojira! Sorry, sorry, sorry! I'll stop showing you his picture!"

Gojira looked at her. She wouldn't show him her grandfather's image? Fine, but why was she here? Why had she wished to kill herself?

Miki kicked the ground. "Because there's no point in living. Everyone hates me because of my powers, they think I'm weirdo. You understand, everyone hating you."

Indeed he could.

Then a break in the clouds formed and what feeble light that could come through did. Gojira stepped away from the light and Miki saw this. "Why are you doing that Gojira? Come into the light so I can see you."

She wouldn't like what she would see.

"Oh, please? I haven't seen you clearly at all Gojira."

So be it. Gojira stepped into full view and Miki screamed.

His body was ravaged beyond compare. His right hand was just bones and ligaments; the right hand was bloody muscle. Blood was the wetness that Miki had felt. Nothing but taught ligaments kept the all too visible innards from spilling out. Both his legs were skinless and were completely raw. His mighty spines were all gone. His face was in some places a grinning skull, in some places bloody meat. There was only one eye and in was barely in its socket.

Stunned, Miki stammered "But, but, how...?" Then remembering her power she looked into Gojira's thoughts concerning this and saw a man under water wearing an old fashioned diving suit. He held a strange device in one arm and through the glass of the face mask she saw one eye covered with a patch. Then she realized what had happened.

Miki knelt down and wept. "...the Oxygen Destroyer..."

Gojira saw this and lowered his head down to her. She would weep for him? Miki heard this and looked up at him to nod. Though just a child, little Miki reached up and touched his face now less than a meter away. If she could only ease some of that pain...

She was never quite sure what happened next. She was told that she was found unconscious on the ground and that she stayed like that for weeks. What happened next was as if it were a dream. She was separated from her body and stayed alongside Gojira as he felt her presence. He had left her, or her body to be exact, as he heard humans approaching. He had known that they would care for her. He had felt her presence as he healed himself with the energies of nuclear submarine and as he replenished his strength with the energies of a nuclear power plant. He had felt her presence when he finally resumed his war with humanity with his attack on Tokyo and his battle with the Super-X Attack Plane. And he had felt her presence when he raged forwards, bathed in red light as if a demon from hell, to deal the city its deathblow.

He heard the human's sonic lure. Fools. They actually thought that that would stop him? He raged forwards but he heard another sound, that of the disembodied Miki pleading for the lives of the people of Tokyo.

"Please Gojira, don't hurt them, let them go! They haven't done anything to you. Don't hurt them!"

He froze and then saw a spectral tear running down the cheek of Miki's soul. "...Please..."

Unable to fight he left soon after towards Mt. Mihara and let himself be led by the humans sonic lure into the crater. When that happened, Miki awoke in hospital bed surrounded by her family. They tried to comfort her as she sobbed uncontrollably, though they knew not for what. Some remarked to themselves that she would have much to cry about when she learned that Gojira had returned while she slept. But she already knew, she already knew.

Knowing that Gojira would return and wanting to be ready she began predicting that he would escape from Mt. Fuji. Nobody believed her so she proved her claims by predicting other things that indeed came to pass. When Gojira, or Godzilla as she called him by then, did return, the world had no choice but to believe her. The newly formed UNGCC saw this and recruited her to be their all star early on. They financed her education and gave her a full scholarship to study kaijuology. They weren't disappointed. Many a time she had acted as Godzilla's conscience and made him spare a city. She could often tell where he was and this helped for much more effective evacuations. Both measures had saved countless lives.

However, most everyone looked at her as a freak, as that "Godzilla woman." She no longer let herself be ruled by such judgments. After all, Miki had accepted long ago that she would always be different. Accepting that, she plunged headfirst into her job so that there was nothing in her life but Godzilla. This caused some conflicts; she was at times morally confused about the "rights" of monsters.

But regardless of all that, as much as she liked the romance of her job, even she needed a break every now and then. And that was why she was at Dinosaur World. She looked up and saw the lengthening shadows. She got up with a start. She checked her watch; an hour had passed since she began eating her Hadrosaur Burger Special. So much time spent just remembering. She checked her veggie burger, it was soggy now, and her soda was flat. Time had passed but some things were worth remembering.

She reached into her purse and pulled out Martin's book, which by now had been signed by him, which her grandfather had given her all those years ago. Wiping away a tear, she remembered how she had learned English just so she could read it to herself. She then pulled out from deep inside the book an old, yellow, brittle photograph. It was of Godzillasaurus; her grandfather, along with his commanding officer, Major Shindo, had taken it all those years ago. She remembered the words her grandfather said the day he died and gave her that photo. "He'll fight for us once again. The savior will come back to protect us."

Miki put the picture back into the book and knew that one day the savior would return.

She got up to throw her garbage away but when she was sorting it into the flammable and non-flammable bins when she noticed that the people around her weren't moving. In fact nothing was. Everything seemed frozen in time. People were statues and balls were stuck in mid-air. What had happened?

"We happened."

Miki looked around when she saw a shimmering near her head. The shimmering grew until it had a shape, the shape of a flat disk with a cross inside. A light came down from it and faded away to show the glowing translucent forms of Moll and Lora, the Elias, in their proper tiny scale.

They looked at Miki and said once more "We happened. We've come to warn you that a terrible space monster is coming."

Miki asked "A space monster?"

"Yes," said Lora, "its name is King Ghidorah and he sleeps inside the meteor that some seek to open. If it is opened then he will be the end of all of us. Mothra has already flown into space to keep it from opening and we now go to speak with the man who would free the Bane of Life."

Puzzled Miki asked, "What can I do to help?"

"Perhaps more than any of us," replied Moll. "It was for this purpose that you were born, for this that we found your grandfather, for this purpose that we told him that we would one day come to you, for this purpose that we have watched over you even just now when you said you wouldn't go look for Godzilla with your beloved. If we fail, if Ghidorah is freed, then Godzilla will be Earth's only hope. And you will be the only one to sooth his savage heart."

Then both the Elias said "You must go Infant Island and wait for Godzilla there." They began to fade away and said, "You must do everything you can to protect your planet."

/o0o\

Steven Martin was walking towards a helicopter on one of G-Force's many airfields. He looked to the side at the many jets stationed there. He could remember the days when all those who would fight Godzilla had were outdated fifties technology. How things had changed, not that it did any good fighting the King of the Monsters. Martin was just about to get on the helicopter when he heard a call on his cell phone. Barely able to hear it above the whirring blades, he walked away from the machine before answering.

"Mushi mushi" he said, the traditional Japanese telephone greeting. "What? ...Oh hello Miki I'm fine... I was just getting on the helicopter for Infant Island... yes... yes... what, you're coming?"

Back in Dinosaur World on her cell phone, Miki smiled and said, "Yes Mr. Martin, don't let that chopper leave. I'm coming."

Chapter Six

Hiiisssss!

"Hey Santos, would you like another one?"

Biting off a piece of carne aside from his tortilla, United Nations' Secretary General Miguel Santos shook his head. "No thank you. You're barbecue skills are very good." Regardless of whatever personal feelings he had against the current POTUS, Santos had to admit that.

"De nada!" said President Emmerich. "Nosotros los Tejanos sabemos como asar carne." He checked one chicken breast grilling on the barbecue and reached for some barbecue sauce to smear on it. "What? Grrrr... the dimwit who set up the tables forgot to put extra sauce. Santos, Salno, stay there. I'll go get some more."

As the President went across the lawn to the nearest bungalow of Camp David to look for some more barbecue sauce, Secretary General Santos and Princess Salno were left to their own devices. Salno smoothed out the dress of the business suit that she normally used when in the company of western dignitaries. She reached across her lawn chair to Secretary General Santos chair and took his hand. "Mr. Secretary, I can't thank you enough for having brought me along on this conference. My nation isn't part of your UN and yet you still chose to help."

"It was my pleasure your highness. And if anything it should be I who thanks you. You have been my best ally in my quest to keep the meteor from being opened. You and our... little friends."

Princess Salno smiled as she looked down towards the basket in which the Moll and Lora were waiting. "They came to me and asked if they could help, give their voice. Hopefully with the two of us and the Elias we'll be able to talk some sense into the President."

Speaking of the devil, America's leader came in with bottles of barbecue sauce in each hand. "I'm back! What'd I miss?"

Secretary General Santos said, "Nothing Mr. President, nothing at all."

"Would either of you like anything else? Some more carne asada for you Santos or roast vegetables for you Salno?"

Santos turned to the Princess who promptly shook her head. "No, thanks you, Mr. President," said the Secretary General. "Besides, we have more important matters to attend to. The meteor."

"Yes," sighed the president as he settled into his lawn chair. "The meteor…. So what do you have to say Santos?"

Secretary Santos looked hard at the President before answering. "You must understand what all this must mean. That technology is centuries ahead of our own. We can't begin to understand it."

"Santos, I know the risks involved and I assure you that NASA is doing all in its power to minimize them. Besides, fear of risks can't determine our destinies."

"Neither can we let foolishness destroy them! Mr. President, there is first of all the very real possibility that the sphere could contain bacteria and viruses from whatever alien civilization that built it. It would be a reverse War of the Worlds with us dying from someone else's diseases."

Emmerich raised an eyebrow. "Are you serious? After the Mysterian invasion, nobody got sick off of their germs."

Santos rolled his eyes. "That is because they were so genetically human that they were able to interbreed with our species." Which leaves you wondering why do they look like us if they're aliens? "We have no proof that the sphere was made by the Mysteries and it is possible that it was made by another civilization to whose diseases we would have no immunity. Aside from that, there is also the question of culture shock."

The President raised an eyebrow. "Culture shock? I don't see that happening Santos. When the Mysterians and then the Muvians attacked, the world didn't suffer any mind numbing culture shock."

"That was different! We were under attack. There wasn't any time for culture shock. But as soon as the threat was passed, there was a mass of self-doubt for humanity. It took thirty years for the Vatican to make an official announcement on extraterrestrial life. As for the Muvians… learning that the Earth was hollow led to some scientists committing suicide!

"But the largest thing to be considered is the sheer scope of this. The revised charter of the United Nations—which your country signed and abided by for the last twenty-five years—states that the UN will take charge when the world is involved. They'd be goals such as when the world's security is at stake or when an event like the meteor's discovery is made. Something like this is to be shared by the entire world and yet you've refused to let this matter be handled by the Word Space Authority as it should be."

"The World Space Authority! Santos, what did they ever do to compare to what I'm having NASA do?"

Santos frowned. "Well Mr. President we did put a man on the moon… The WSA's purpose is not only to handle joint space ventures between nations, but also to handle things like the Moon Base or the plan to colonize the other planets." A strange look crossed the Secretary General's face. "This all leaves me wondering why you are so determined open the sphere at all."

The President said "For the alien technology that is inside, what else? And don't you go lecturing me Santos that there's no proof. I'm willing to bet my administration on it."

"I see. And what would you do with this technology Mr. President?"

"Why reverse engineer it to advance America's own, of course." A faraway saccharine look came across Emmerich's face. "The United States has a Manifest Destiny to be the greatest nation in the world and to instruct all lesser nations on how to determine their fates." Santos rolled his eyes; he didn't even want to talk to the man about the idea of self-determination.

"However," blustered the President, "America's sovereign right to do so has been challenged by another nation: Japan. That it should recover from the devastation of WWII is fine. But since then it has become a hyper power and that's not right. It's not enough that it should win the respect of others for having stood up to the kaiju for years and the prestige for having 'saved the world' with the Atragon back when Mu attacked the surface, noooo.

"Japan Inc. just has to export its culture; it just has to flood our markets with their products. And its ability to do so stems from the reverse engineered Moguera robots that were left behind by the Mysterians. This has given the Japanese an unfair advantage, technologically. Its weapons are light-years ahead of anyone else's: maser tanks, maser jets, giant robots, super planes, theirs and the United Nations'. If they can have ordinance like that why shouldn't America?"

The unflappable Secretary General sighed. "First of all, if other nations were to have such ordinance it could lead to dangerous weapons proliferation. Secondly, Japan needs weapons that powerful just to survive against the kaiju. As for the UN's Defense Force of Earth, the same holds true. There weren't any problems, we knew what we faced, and we knew what the robots were. The US doesn't have Japan's or the DFE's problems so as to need such high technology."

"Oh and you don't call the Wolfman or the Swarm a problem? Is that right?"

At that, Santos uncharacteristically lost his temper and shouted, "Clavos de Cristo! You'd compare them to Japan's terrors? Japan has had to face the worst daikaiju that the earth has ever seen, and to top it off Godzilla himself. And if either one of us knows how dangerous Godzilla is, its me. Maldicion Emmerich, my son is going after that thing! He's going after it right now! The werewolf kaiju has never caused any human deaths and is nowhere near American soil; he's Canadian. As for the Swarm they're just a bunch of insects. Inagos the Locust King is the worst of the lot and even he doesn't go past fifty meters. I saw his Black Scorpions for myself when I was a boy in Mexico City." A guilty look crossed the man's face. "Mr. Pres… Devlin… if even the Mexican army could fight the Swarm with 1950s technology I'm sure the US army can do the same with 2000s technology.

Emmerich took a swig of beer. "Yeah, Commander Raschell contained them years ago… but… but what if the Swarm attacked again, eh! Besides, the only country that deserves that kind of tech is the US. With today's methods of reverse engineering the USA will be able to unlock the alien secrets in the sphere even better than the Japanese did with the Moguera robots."

Santos looked at his opponent and calmly raised an eyebrow. "So this is petty one upmanship, is that right?"

"Don't you talk to me like that! I'm the most powerful man in the world."

"Mr. President, the last time I checked, that position belonged to me, the Secretary General of the United Nations. And it's not like you handled your position well. If Martin's book and the Russians are right then the American version of the near nuclear destruction of Tokyo in 1985 is nonsense. The Russians didn't give those orders, Reagan had someone who wants to open a certain meteor give the captain fake orders to launch the missile if Godzilla attacked so that it could nuke him and smear Russia.

Mr. Prime Minister, the only way we can be absolutely certain of destroying Godzilla is by using nuclear weapons! The memory of that accusation still stung. "You shut up-!"

"Enough!" Both men turned to Princess Salno who had up till then remained silent. She looked at the President with a grim foreboding look in her eyes. "I said enough! You don't know what you're doing. Since it's obvious that you won't listen to Santos's truths, I will have to show you my truths and tell you what's really inside the meteor."

"And what's inside the meteor oh wise Salno?" the President condescendingly asked.

Princess Salno bent down and picked up the basket. She opened it up and out leapt the Elias. They leapt unto the nearby table and said simultaneously. "King Ghidorah is inside."

The President just stood there in shock and disbelief before responding. "Ghidorah? You're lying... You're lying! How do-... umm, never mind. What are you Elias doing here?"

Moll smirked. "He remembers us Lora."

Lora sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. "Sorry about destroying your factory Mr. Emmerich…"

Moll saw the confused look on Princess Salno's face. "That's for another day your highness. We have something else far more important to attend to right now. Mr. President. Locked inside the meteor is Ghidorah, the most terrible monster you or anyone could ever imagine and if released, he will seek to destroy all life on Earth."

"Please!" Lora pressed her hands together, as in prayer. "You musn't do it. The demon's been safely locked away for thousands of years in the sphere but if it's opened… For the sake of the entire planet, don't free King Ghidorah!"

The President angrily frowned at them. "I did not campaign for the office of president so that I could be lectured at by bunch of… a bunch of fairy tales!" he hissed. "You expect me to believe what you said just because you said so? I challenge you to offer one shred of proof."

"Here."

America's belligerent leader looked at Salno who was handing him a disc. "I said here. I came ready for such a question. I've prepared several discs for this, all of them having to do with King Ghidorah."

"Get them out of my face," he disdainfully said. "I had hoped that we could have a reasonable conversation but you had to come ready with all this. I will not change my mind about this."

The Elias looked at each other and both said, "Is that your final answer?"

"Yes."

Moll stood there stunned. She was staring blankly at President Devlin Emmerich, one eye twitching ever so slightly. Then she shot him with an energy blast that sent him flying out of his lawn chair and several feet away on the grass. He was still reeling, still feeling static crackling all over his body when he felt a a slight prick on his neck. He, along with Lora, Princess Salno, and Secretary Santos, gasped as he came to see that the prick was the point of Moll's sword.

"Your final answer!?" Moll rabidly screamed. "You said it's your final answer?! You will NOT open the sphere! Do you understand? Do it and I will kill you!"

"Guards! Help me!" screamed the terrified man.

Lora leapt from the table and unto the President's chest where she wrestled her sister down. "Stop it Moll! This isn't the way!"

"Damn it Lora," Moll screamed, thrashing in his sister's grip, "this isn't the right way but this fool has made it the only way!"

The President saw this and took them both in their hands like a human King Kong. Seeing them squirm he said, "Now who's got who, eh?"

Salno took his hand and forced it open to let the Elias go. "I don't believe you! Who do you think you are?! That monster will destroy the world!"

"Step away from the President!" She looked around and saw the Secret Service Agents who the President had summoned. The agents followed their leader lead and raised their guns. "I repeat, step away from the President now! This will be your last warning!"

Frightened, Salno did as she was told. Though lowered, the agents' guns remained unholstered and they awaited the President's orders. They were not long in coming. "Take her away."

"What? What do you mean?" Moll found out when one of the Secret Service Agents took scooped her up and pulled her away. She began kicking and screaming and instinctively shot a psychic bolt at the man holding her. When Secret Service man didn't fall—telepathy blocking implant—she just redoubled her efforts. "Dammit Emmerich, you can't do this!" Moll screamed. "You don't know what you're doing! Ghidorah'll kill us all! He'll kill us all!"

/o0o\

The wind sliced away off Fairy Mothra's wings as she and her two riders reached Infant Island. A sickening pall hung over Moll and Lora as they rode on through the night. All through their journey, past land and sea, they had been sunk in this miserable state. Normally they enjoyed flights on Fairy, they enjoyed the rush and the passing wind, but now they just loathed it. As they approached their Island home, they saw the lights of several campfires and knew that the men and women from G-Force had arrived. Moll and Lora looked at each other and allowed themselves a brief smile; at least they could have some respite from their sorrows.

They guided Fairy down to the treetops. As they reached the outskirts of the village they set Fairy down near a small stone. But no sooner did they get off when someone grabbed Lora and put a blade to Lora's throat. "I got you now! Any last words?"

Lora weakly smiled at the blade. "Belvie!" She spun around and hugged her sister. "Anything new?"

The black clad un-Seelie pouted and sheathed her sword. "How did you know it was me?"

"Because you've been playing that game ever since we were children, that is to say for several thousand years."

Belvera chuckled, "Well you can't blame a girl for trying."

"One more thing..."

"What is it?" asked Moll.

"Umm... back when you were with that human... he didn't hurt you. I mean, are you all right?"

"Yes we are," said Moll. "We already told you telepathically. Lora and I are alright."

Belvera breathed a sigh of relief. "Good."

Lora giggled at the thought. "You worried about us? Is that right? Could big bad Belvera actually be concerned about someone?"

Blushing furiously, Belvera said "Oh you shut up!" A smirk crossed the black beauty's face. "Whatever, c'mon. The G-Force guys are waiting for you back at the village."

The three sisters mounted their aerial steeds; Moll and Lora on Fairy, Belvera on Garu-Garu; as they completed the final leg of the journey home. As her miniature cyborg dragon flew on and dodged branches and leaves as he did, Belvera looked towards her sisters. "It didn't go to well with the human, did it?"

Ever in the role of the spokeswoman, Moll looked from Fairy's back and said "No. We tried to reason with him, but he shut us out completely. He just wouldn't listen about King Ghidorah and the sphere."

Belvera smirked. "You shouda mind controlled him!"

Her younger sister sighed and threw a dirty look at the youngest sister. "I would have if Lora hadn't stopped me."

Bristling at that comment the youngest of the Elias said, "You two know it wouldn't have worked. They would have had some psis ready to snap him out of it. And the man gave instructions to open the sphere no matter what. What did you want to do? Brainwash an entire nation's government?"

Belvera stroked her chin. "Psychic gang rape!" Her sisters blanched at the sick grin crossing her face. "Yeah, I mean yes we'll destroy dozens of minds in the process and dozens more as people find out but… but if we combine all our magic we can pull of this coup!"

Moll saw their baby sister was about to launch into an emotional tirade and quickly cut her off. "In theory it could be justified Belvera but our magic just doesn't work that way, you know that. The more harm it causes, the greater the spell fizzle." She saw the look of disgust that was now redirected at her but Moll motioned her little sister to quiet down

Belvera, unaware of that, reluctantly nodded. "You have a point. All we can do is hope that Mothra succeeds."

"And Princess Salno" added Moll. "She's going to lead a protest against opening the sphere."

Ever the pessimist, the eldest Elias sister hit Garu-Garu's head. "Yeah her winning has the odds of you having reasoned with that Devlin Emmerich guy."

"Well at least we tried," said Lora. "But I still can't see why he wouldn't listen to us."

"Ha! Oh really?" Belvera looked from Garu-Garu's back. "As I remember you two goody goods once shut down a factory of his from before he took power on account of it was polluting some river and proving a monster maker. Who knew the Blob could turn black and shoot lasers out of blood shot eyes," she said sarcastically.

Then all of a sudden an especially grim look came on Belvera's face. "Now King Ghidorah's coming and he's going to rain blood... AAARRRGGHHHH!" A frown crossed her lips. "We can just wait and see how the Universe is going to punish us all now."

/o0o\

However, such grim thoughts were far from the minds of the men and women of G-Force. They were watching the Infant Islanders perform one of their many beautiful songs and dances. It was their holiest day, the Feast of Plenty, and they celebrated in the crater of the extinct volcano. All the G-Force soldiers and people of the village were watching this happily as huge and grim Battra looked on from a vast stone slab carved as part of the ruined temple on whose steps was this celebration. The palm huts were empty of their occupants for they were around various fires eating and drinking as part of the Feast. The crops were good and they thanked Mothra's goodness that made it possible. They only occasionally cast a worried glance at Battra, but even he was enjoying himself.

Why shouldn't he enjoy the celebrations. For all he knew it was going to be his last?

Miki was sitting on the sand next to Kyle at that moment holding his hand as they listened to his grandfather's Godzilla stories told around the fire. The chieftain had asked for tales of the King of the Monsters be told for if they were to face him then they would have to know of him. Kyle squeezed her hand. "Miki, I... I want to tell you I'm sorry for blowing up back there."

"Back where?" she asked.

"Back when Godzilla had attacked the city and you were with the victims. I shouldn't have yelled at you like that. I mean you were trying to help those poor men and I just go crazy."

"It's alright Kyle; I know you were stressed out." She knew that this wasn't the first time that such an apology had been needed and it wouldn't be he last. With such opposite feelings on Godzilla, it was inevitable. But she loved him and knew that something would be worked out, wouldn't it? Bah! It would turn out alright in the end, love would conquer all. After all, they had been able to stay together seriously for four years already. She just snuggled up to him and put her head on his shoulder.

Kyle looked at her with a sad expression on his face. He ran his hand through her glossy black hair and wondered, and not for the first time, if he was good enough for her. Then he remembered what his grandfather said and reached inside his pocket to feel the small box inside, a box in which was held a wedding ring. It would be hard, but he had to believe that something world work out. He had to. With that thought, he returned his attention to his grandfather as he finished his story, the story of the beginning.

"The menace was gone," said Stephen Martin, "but so was a great man. But for his sacrifice the whole world could wake up to live again."

The people sat in silence blinking away their tears. Then their white bearded, feather crowned chieftain stood up, his staff in hand. He looked at those G-Force soldiers seated around him and said, "Soon, the beast will come and you outsiders will stand against him. For this you have our thanks. But tell us why did you join the fight against him? Why have you chosen to fight these battles?" He looked at a red haired man and said, "You rise."

"Very well, sir." He got up and addressed all those present. "My name is Private Ian Trevor and I'm from Scotland. I've been wanting for years to be a veterinarian at the Loch Ness Wildlife Park where Nessie makes her home, the way my uncle does did. But the price of such schooling is much. Then I heard that if I joined G-Force, they'd pay my way for me. I needed the money and I always wanted to see the beasties so I joined."

An Asian woman rose after. "Well my story isn't as hunky dory. I used to live in San Francisco's Chinatown as a girl. I was happy until a super oodako came and attacked. It came from beneath the sea and destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge! My father took a job offer in Norway and left. But then the day we arrived, the krakens, oodako sized squids, came and harassed the coast. I grew up there and when I could I left for Australia. As far as I knew there were no sea monsters off its shore's. But of course, I was taking a ferry ride and the Lord Howe Monster made its first appearance. I decided that that was it and said that from there on, I would decide when I would meet the monsters, not the other way around."

The Chief nodded. He spoke to many people that night and heard their stories. Some joined out of a fascination for monsters and some were just looking for the biggest adventure the world could give. One G-Force soldier even said he had joined up as part of a bet he lost. They all seemed nice enough but as the Chief looked across his guests, he saw one who hadn't spoken. "Many stories are they, and many can be told, but they are meant for another day. One final tale, you young one."

Kyle was taken aback. "Who, me?"

"Yes you. What is your tale? How did you come to fight these battles?"

At that, several soldiers grew silent; they knew that you never asked Kyle about his past. And indeed, his face grew grim, but, to his credit, he remembered he was a guest and answered the question. "Monsters are also a part of my bloodline. When my grandfather here—" Kyle gestured to Stephen Martin "—saw Godzilla, that was written in stone. My father had already been born and after this wanted to learn of the monsters. He married and he & my mother had two children, by brother, Raymond, and myself. After our parents died Raymond and I went to live with my grandfather. It was there that it truly began for me.

"It was the year 1985. I was playing on the floor, not a care in the world. True, I had noticed that my grandfather had been acting strangely before as if he had sensed something, but I thought nothing of it. Then my toy dinosaur hit against a man's leg. Not knowing who this tall uniformed man was, I exclaimed 'grandpa! grandpa!' My grandfather soon sent my brother and me to spend a few days with his friend George Lawrence while he himself went with 'that scary man.' I soon realized that Godzilla, Godzilla who my grandfather and parents had spoken of since I was a baby, had returned. Time passed and it seemed only right that I follow in my father's footsteps."

"Is that all?" asked the chieftain.

"Yes. That is all," Kyle coldly replied.

The tribe's white bearded leader then raised his staff for all to see. "Then this has ended. Let the Feast of Plenty resume."

And it did. The celebrations would continue well into the night and many were left happy. But even so, a worried look came across Miki's face as she looked at Kyle.

Chapter Seven

In time, the feast ended and all fell to sleep. Those asleep included Miki and she tossed and turned in the sleeping bag she had bought with her. She knew that Godzilla could come at any moment; they had to be ready. Infant Island's scouting parties had promised to keep an eye out for anything unusual. Yet even their assurances weren't enough to assure Miki a restful night's sleep for she had gone into her sleeping bag with a worried feeling. And she had had her powers long enough to trust her premonitions.

In her dream Miki was wandering through a mist. The mist was a thick one and she couldn't see herself, but she could feel a presence. Who was it that Miki sensed in her dream? She did not know; her own powers were small, far too small to know what was happening. Then she heard it. It was so loud that it made her ears hurt, for it was musical thunder.

"Up here Miki."

She knew that the voice was coming from somewhere high and there she looked. It was the Elias, but huge beyond words. They would have matched Godzilla himself but Miki was not stunned. After all, she knew that she was in a dream and that the world of dreams was one of the mind. And the powers the Elias had of the mind were absolute. Such were the Elias's true selves and it didn't startle Miki anymore; she remembered when they first came to her like this. She had been so untrained in her powers then she hadn't been a tenth the size she was now.

The gigantic Moll lowered herself to the ground to see little Miki. "There you are. We've been looking for you."

"You have?" asked a puzzled Miki.

"Yes," said Moll's now equally titanic sister Lora. "You remember, of course, what we said. We would tell you everything once you reached the island."

"What is it?" asked Miki. "What must be told?"

Moll got up and looked at Lora. Then they both spoke simultaneously. "What's at stake, and why the battle will be waged. We came back in failure from trying to reason with the human but a few hours ago. He is determined to open the sphere and if Mothra should arrive too late to stop it from opening, then Oberon help us."

Miki craned her neck to look at them, with a look of confusion on her face. "Why? What's so horrible about the monster inside?"

The Elias grimly rumbled, "Come with us."

Lora knelt to set down her hand. Miki stepped into her palm and was raised up. Once level to Lora's chest both sisters looked at her. Moll said, "Of course you know of Godzilla's having lived since the time of the dinosaurs."

"Of course" replied Miki.

"Do you know of anything else? Did he ever tell you of where he came from, the places that he lived, the other dinosaurs he knew?"

Miki lowered her head. "Well, no. He never 'told' me. I ask him telepathically and he merely 'says' its not important."

The Elias said, "Then we will tell you."

Hurricane winds began to blow that left the mist they were all in began to swirl and spin like some kind of cauldron. Swirling and seething it continued until finally it stopped. When it did, the limbo in which they remained was still the same but there was a portal around which thick swirling fog formed a border. It was a round window that showed another world.

Looking at it, Miki felt herself drawn into it. It was as if she could see it all in her mind's eye. "What is this place? It feels familiar, somehow..."

Moll smiled. "That's because it's your home Miki. It's Japan, though several million years ago. And even that should be familiar to you. You've seen it several times in Godzilla memories."

Miki gasped in shock. "You mean this is, this is..."

Lora said serenely. "Yes, it is Earth in the times of the dinosaurs."

Together they said, "The beast you call Godzilla is not of your world, far from it. He belongs to a far older world, one already old when the when that of the Elias was young. A world before your kind lived, a world before the ape and the elephant as well; before the wolf, the bison, the whale; before the mammoth and the mastodon; a world in the time of the dinosaurs.

"Now see with us this."

Miki paid close attention to whatever it was that the Elias had to show her and saw, on the beach of a swampy tropical land that would one day be called Japan, a battle. She looked closely and saw that one of the combatants was Godzilla. Shocked, Miki ran forward screaming "I've gotta save him!"

"You can't." Moll said. "We can neither be seen nor heard; we are ghosts in this place."

Frightened Miki looked forward to see whom it was with Godzilla battled. She had never seen the other kaijusaur. The other giant was something like a tan colored ankylosaurus for he walked on four legs and had a shell on his back, though the shell was covered with countless bone spikes. His tail had no club but was covered with more spikes from base to tip all sticking out to the furthest. A small horn was on his crocodilian snout and a spray of spines was at the base of his head. Miki knew from her psychic powers that his name was Anguirus.

He and Godzilla circled each other; neither willing to make the first move and neither willing to make the failing mistake. Both were possessed by a ferocious warrior's soul that would not cede so much as one inch to his enemies and fight to the last against them.

Then the battle was joined again. Anguirus lowered his head and charged but Godzilla saw this and dodged to the side. The spined kaijusaur saw that Godzilla had fallen and then raised himself up to deal a fearsome blow but the King of the Monsters spun on his back on the sand with his tail outstretched and tripped Anguirus. Turnabout fair play, the King raised both his fists to smash down on the spiny ones belly, but he rolled on his belly so that the fists fell on the spiny shell. Bellowing his pain at bleeding hands Godzilla nevertheless lowered his own head for a battering ram attack against his foe. Left sprawling, Anguirus got up and on his hind legs at that. Like a bear, Anguirus could rear up to do battle when the need came. Before the other could react Anguirus body-slammed his foe and was at his throat with fearsome teeth. When Anguirus sensed no resistance, he released his grip.

Horrified, Miki whispered "Godzilla..."

Moll smirked. "Don't worry," the giantess assured Miki. "He'll be alright."

Godzilla slowly got on his feet as Anguirus watched. It had been more than a good battle. It had been a great battle! He and Anguirus threw their heads back and roared. Miki looked on in shock but that shock quickly turned to resignation. Through her smile, she thought to herself that whatever the species, men are men!

It had been one big game, and it would be the last for a while. Godzilla would have to leave soon and it would be for an unknown time that he would not see his sworn brother Anguirus. Then they heard another call. Both kaijusaurs, along with Miki, turned to see what at was. While Godzilla and Anguirus were not surprised in the least, Miki was stunned at the sight.

At first glance it seemed to be another Godzilla! The basic shape was there, but there were several differences. She, the creature was female, was shorter than Godzilla. She didn't even reach his shoulder! She was significantly slimmer and her skin was a bright smooth green rather than a rough black. Her whole face was, in fact, soft and gentle instead of savage. Her spines were in a single row and were sharp and sword-like but were shockingly purple. She walked on her toes like a normal theropod dinosaur and tail and body were both mostly horizontal. Her forearms were tucked into her chest. Her name was Gigantis, the Fire Monster, and she was Godzilla's mate.

Though he gave a final look as he left, Anguirus slipped away at this; he knew that the two would prefer to be alone. Soon enough the world seemed to grow silent save for these two. The two walked toward each other and pressed their snouts against each other. Godzilla ran his tongue against her face to comfort her for there was a great sadness in her eyes. Alone, the kaijusaur mates lay down alongside each other on the sandy beach. Their bodies were touching. Trembling, Gigantis rested her head on Godzilla's chest.

Godzilla nuzzled her head. Oh how he loved her so. They entwined their tails and Godzilla ran his tongue over her body. Gigantis was saddened because he would soon have to leave. She knew that guarding the Great Tyrannosaur's children was her mate's responsibility. She knew before she became his mate that he would have to leave periodically to fulfill his duties. She always worried for his safety, but it wasn't that this time. Their son would soon hatch from his egg. He would hatch any day now.

Godzilla knew that and hated it. He knew that he wouldn't be there when his son hatched. Having been stigmatized as a hatchling for his size by his fellow dinosaurs, he had always wanted to be a good father when his time came and thus it hurt having to leave. Only Gigantis's understanding eased his loathing of himself for having to leave. It would only be for a short while and when he came back their son, Baby Godzilla, would be waiting for him.

It was thus with a heavy heart that Godzilla finally turned toward the ocean. He waded until the water reached his waist and then dived underneath. Though even then Gigantis could still see his spines protruding from the surface until he went to deep water. She turned around and began to head back towards the pack. Her's had also been a difficult life from the start. Like her mate, Gigantis had been shunned as a young dinosaur for her enormous size. Even though she secretly prided herself on her size and strength, she had been quite miserable watching her ordinary tyrannosaur sisters gain mates. It was even more difficult when eggs were produced. Gigantis's heart had ached at the thought that she would never have a mate and hatchlings. But then Godzilla came.

Every dinosaur knew about him. Yet even though he protected all the dinosaurs, he took special care concerning the tyrannosaurs that had spawned him for they were his family. They were also the last and finest children of the Great Tyrannosaur, his chosen people. Yes, the Tyrannosaur had indeed spawned the King of the Monsters as it had his queen. He first found her securing the carcass of a Seismosaur for her by-then diminutive pack when they first met. At the time Gigantis did not know it but she had been born to be his mate. Godzilla was not immortal; he would die one day. Thus to carry on the legacy to serve and protect the children of the Great Tyrannosaur after he left this world to be at the Great One's side, Godzilla would need a son, an heir. Gigantis would be the one who would give him that heir. They each soon found themselves to be the other's only possible mate and from that time on stood by each other's side.

She was walking when she heard a shrill cry. Looking up she saw it was Rodan flanked by smaller pterosaurs. Gigantis was slightly happy at seeing it. She knew that Rodan, a kaijusaur, likewise guarded the children of the Great Tyrannosaur, father of all saurians. However, Rodan made especially sure to guard its fellow pterosaurs from spiteful Meganuron swarms.

But in any case, why did Meganuron's hate dinosaurs so much? Most likely because of how they were the last survivors of the earlier Age of Insects. If so, that showed them to be poor sports because their king, Inagos, had willingly ceded his reign for the Great Tyrannosaur's children to reign.

Perhaps this was so, but that was the least of Gigantis worries. In the sky with the Rodan, was a strange shimmering object. She thought that perhaps it was one of the stars that occasionally fell to earth. It had been in the sky for several weeks know, glowing slightly brighter every night. Now it would shine brighter than the moon. Gigantis knew it was nothing to worry about, however, just another falling star...

Turning her mind to more important matters, she made her way the sandy dunes where she and Godzilla made their residence. Gigantis recalled her mate's late parents, both normal sized Tyrannosaurs whose son was birthed to guard Mother Earth. Their names were Blood Fang and Pretty Kill and the Great One's blood was strong in them; their son had fought the good fight for centuries and they still lived to see him and know pride. The Great One's blood had been strong in them as it was in their son's mate.

Her steps making the ground shake, Gigantis went to a small mound. It was about three meters high as the a future species called humans would measure things. It was small next to a kaijusaur like herself, but huge compared to other nests. In it was her son, her only son, who would soon hatch. Crouching down she looked at it with great expectation. She looked at it and knew that he would prove a fine heir to his father's crown. It was the perfect picture of familial bliss.

Miki saw this. "His mate, his son, his best friend... Godzilla never told me this... Moll, Lora, why didn't he ever tell me this?"

The younger titaness hung her head. "Because it was too painful."

"Why?" Asked Miki. "What made it so painful."

"This."

On the beach, Gigantis was resting comfortably when she saw a shooting star suddenly fall and make a slight noise in the distance. The Fire Monster was puzzled. What could it be? She knew she should investigate. After all, as a kaijusaur she was a protector like her mate. Looking to the nest and certain that her scent would war off any trespassers, she left to see what had happened.

Over a hundred miles away was the newly spawned space demon. Some one hundred fifty meters tall with a wingspan of one hundred twenty meters, the freak was an armless, batwinged, three headed, gold-scaled devil. Each sinuous neck was spiked and the vaguely reptilian heads were crowned with backward pointing horns. King Ghidorah looked around at the wasteland he had produced by his mere presence.

To empower himself he had leached the land of everything it had and so had left ground zero was a blackened crater not fit to grow dust. All the mighty conifers and yew of a cypress swamp for miles around were reduced to shriveled skeletons. The dinosaurs that had tried and failed to escape were left as bleached bones. The predators that would try to gnaw on them in the days to come would fare no better. Their marrow was poisoned with Ghidorah's Taint and the carnivores that ate it would choke in agony. In fact, one pack of Velociraptors was sentencing itself to the end at that very moment.

This particular pack of five had sensed a commotion and had come to see. The savage, ugly, sickle clawed midgets. They were only four feet tall, as humans measure things. Their meanness didn't keep them from gnawing the bones of a tjungasaurus, a duckbill, that had died in the explosion. Perhaps the band thought to crack the bones open with its teeth and suck out the marrow. That was the last mistake they ever made.

King Ghidorah's right head shot down and clamped two jaws on the helpless dromeosaurs. The feathered predators hadn't even had time to scream for the sheer force of it killed the creature instantly. All that was left of them was ruined limbs and bloody paste dripping from the demon's maws. Furious, the demon cast aside the remains of the liquefied corpses like so much refuse. He had hoped for some sadistic glee! Bah! If all the saurians were this pathetic, Ghidorah would spare the planet just to avoid putting it out of its misery.

He was about to walk away when he felt a horrific burning force push him to the ground and keep pushing against him. He screeched in agony as the pain and pounding continued. A red beam of fire kept blasting against him and that made him rage. When it finally stopped, the three headed monster, still smoking, got up to see who or what had done this.

He turned around and saw Gigantis to whom he narrowed all six eyes. Gigantis' eyes, on the other hand, went wide with shock. With chest heaving, the Fire Monster saw she had used her Red Fire at full force and the thing wasn't even hurt?! True it was not her mate's Atomic Ray but still... She had used all her energy with that attack in the hopes that it would be enough to destroy the fiend. Though her long purple spines were still glowing bright orange, the glow was fading. It seemed as if know the battle would be fang and claw. Then King Ghidorah launched a volley of fireballs at her.

The resultant scream was such that Anguirus heard it from far away and came running on all fours. Not fast enough, he vaulted heels over head, curled into a ball, and tucked his head forward. Now he rolled forward like a giant spiny fifty-meter high boulder with all speed to the rescue. Surely, whatever menace bedeviled his brother's mate could be overcome by their combined might.

But it was not to be. Godzilla had also seen the crash out to sea and had swum back to see what it was. When he arrived at the dunes of his home he saw every last laving thing was dead and their bloated corpses in flames. Blood painted the shoreline red and when Gozilla smelled it, he knew it was Anguirus'.The land, the trees, everything was torn down and ruined. It wasn't just the acrid smoke from all the burning corpses that made his eyes water. But the worst was the nest.

He saw it and could barely numbly register it. It was as if his soul had been torn out run through a meat grinder. The nest mound where Gigantis had left their egg was torn apart. There was no sign of Baby, his son, his only son. Whoever had done this must have killed the child as well, but what of his mother...?

Fearing the worst, Godzilla followed Gigantis' scent and hoped against all hope that at least she was still alive. But when he found her, it was already too late. Broken and bruised and bleeding, her face was swollen & raw. She was on her last breath when he found her and her blood stained the sand red. Anguirus was nowhere to be found and was surely dead. Terrified for her life, he knelt down and placed his muzzle next to the pulped remains of her own.

Millions of years afterwards, when a species of mammal called humans would continue their existence into an Age of Monsters, they would say to themselves that the kaiju were animals that couldn't talk. This was wrong. Many kaiju were sentient beings capable of thought and emotion at a human level. While it was true that giant monsters were unable to communicate verbally, they were capable of making their ideas known to each other, even abstract ones. This was done by a combination of calls and psychic interface as would one day be realized by a human called Miki Segeusa. So as a result if Gigantis last "words" could be translated into a human language, they would be this:

They took Baby...

Miki saw all this and realized what it meant. All her sorrows that she had ever felt for the beast were as nothing compared to that they were now. She numbly stared ahead as the world dissolved around her into mist and she whispered nothing but this. " Oh Godzilla..."

Still holding Miki in her hand, for in a dream world which one of the mind the power of the Elias would truly be great, the titanic Moll lifted Miki to her face. "Now you know. Godzilla and the other kaijusaurs fought Now you know the fury of the coming battle and why Godzilla will fight the King of the Terror to the last."

Miki wiped the tears from her eyes. "Why do you speak of it as if it will come no matter what?"

Lora moved her gargantuan face away. "Normally our powers are useless for prophecy. But sometimes we still can sense when some future event will happen. King Ghidorah will come, I can feel it in my bones!"

"Then why send Mothra if you know that she'll fail to stop the sphere from opening?"

Lora sighed. "Don't you think Me and Moll tried reasoning with her? There's another way, I know it but..."

Miki looked up at both of them. "And if she fails, Godzilla will fight the monster won't he?"

Moll said "It won't be that simple. Yes Godzilla will fight and you will be his guide. Miki Segeusa, after the extinction of his children, Draco Deus, the god of all reptiles, took pity on those of his kaijusaurs that still lived for their's was a great pain: to lose those whom they swore to protect. He made them sleep cocoons so they might someday awaken in a better world. It was Draco Deus who was old when the world was young andwho had forged pushed the continents together to make Pangea for his creations.

"When the Age of Men came, it was from he that Lemuria's highest prophetesses and our mother, Dragon Queen received this worse: After the oceans drink Atlantis, humanity would start anew but that when the race of man steals the fires of the gods, the Age of Men would end and the Age of Monsters would begin. Some of them would be guardians of the Ancients, some of them from before the Ancients. It was said that one of them would be Draco Deus' champion, Draco Paladin who would rise one to be their King and there would be none to sooth his savage heart save one. And that one is you."

Miki gasped. "ME!"

Moll rumbled, "Yes you."

"Why?"

Lora replied, "By the command of the Almighty, the dragon god gave his command by our mother, Titania. These words were blessed by the Almighty God and His judgments cannot be questioned. Such knowledge is neither for you to know nor we to say. He who created the Heavens and the Earth has decreed that it is you Miki who will guide Godzilla and sooth his savage heart. Godzilla is the only force capable of saving the Earth but the question isn't can he but will he."

The last words the Elias said were in unison. "You task is to save the Earth Miki Segeusa. And Godzilla will be the means by which you do it. He the Beast and you the Beauty, you must make him the hero he was always meant to be. No matter how hard it grows, no matter how desperate and dark it may grow, you must believe that you can do it and fulfill the task that God has given you."

And Miki woke up. Trembling and sweating, she threw off her sleeping bag and made herself remember that she was still on Infant Island. Racing out of the hut where she had been sleeping with the other members of G-Force, Miki made her way to a clearing and looked to the night sky. Now it begins.

/o0o\

The time had finally come. After months of protests and debates, the sphere would finally open. People around the world had been sitting around their television screens for hours listening to James Lawrence give the news report. He was a good reporter, one of the best there was. He had enthralled the world with his as-it-happens narration and personality. He had made the drama come alive for those at home, made them feel as if they were there with Astronaut Glen as he was placing the codes on the seismic charges. But what nobody knew would that after the day was done, the world would see the cruelest monster that ever was.

"Hello this is James Lawrence United World Television News with the latest update on the meteor. The NASA space team has just finished programming the last charges and will fire them at any moment. When that moment will be we do not know but have been told our by science correspondent on the scene that it will be very soon.

"In related news, Princess Selina Salno has set up a mass protest in America's capital, Washington DC, to protest this action. As you may already know, Salno has been the single most outspoken critic of the President's course of action and recently held a meeting with him at Camp David. As part of her protest, Princess Salno has repeatedly stated that a monster called King Ghidorah is inside the sphere and will attack Earth if released. It should be noted that this reporter doesn't believe a word of- What? This just in... Mothra is approaching the meteor?!"

Yes she was. Though the screen was blurry, the figure of Mothra was evident. Angrily chirping as she swooped down from the starry darkness of space to the surface of the meteor making pass after pass, she began firing beams from her antenna on everything she could. First this crazy mission and now this? The meteor's landscape exploding around him, Astronaut Glen was shocked at the sight and prepared to run, the magnetic soles of his space suit's boots gripping the ground. He looked at the astronauts under his command frozen in fear and disbelief, why would Mothra do this? She was supposed to be a hero!

"Men c'mon!" he yelled at his men, telling them to get into the ship and the ship to get ready for rapid departure in need be. Slowly but surely Glen and his men space walked through the low gravity to the Space shuttle, all the while Mothra chasing the other astronauts toward it. Strangely, her attack ended as suddenly as it began when the last human was aboard the Shuttle. Fuji closed the door of their vessel and minutes later the shuttle was already lifting off. He was just taking off his helmet in the already pressurized, gravity generating cabin when he said, "I don't get it? Why was she trying to chase us? …No …no, no, no"

"Don't get what, sir?" asked a crewman. "You alright?"

"Nothing its just that…" Glen grew quiet when he looked at his crew. Its not like that Salno woman could be right... Glen shook his head and looked out the window; they were departing and the asteroid and Mothra were quickly growing smaller. "Yeah, I'm OK," he told his crew. Just gotta get my bearings straight."

Then President Emmerich's voice rang tinny over the Shuttle's voice speaker. "That's the spirit Glen. I knew I was doing something right when I chose to oversee this personally from Mission Control. Now," he smirked into the microphone he held on his end, "one more thing."

"Houston... er, Mr. President? What is it?"

Emmerich looked at the NASA logo to the right of him. "Are the charges still functional?"

"Yes Mr. President. Why do you ask?"

"Glen, I want you to detonate them."

"What?"

The Commander-in-Chief growled, "You heard me, detonate them!"

"But Mothra's there, sir," protested the Astronaut. "We do that it might kill her."

"And what was she trying to do just now?"

Glen blanched at the thought. Hurt Mothra after all she's done... Now I know why I never liked him. "Sir, she didn't hurt anyone and unless my crew suffer a real attack I cannot-will not-attack her! She's done too much for us."

Devlin Emmerich felt his blood pressure start to spike. "Damn Salno... This is direct order from your President! Do you obey it or not?"

"Sir-!"

"Do you obey it or not!?"

He felt his mouth grow dry. "I... I..." Then he knew what he had to do. "I'll shoot Mothra the day I spit on the American flag!" Screwing up his courage, he shouted, "No! If Mothra's here it's for a reason and I won't budge until we have that reason... And I voted for the other guy!"

Back at NASA Mission Control, the president was heard letting loose a strong of profanity that only the drunken sergeant might use against the saltiest sailor in a swearing match. He stomped to the nearest computer terminal and demanded, "You! Can the charges be detonated remotely?"

Still intimidated from his boss's temper tantrum, the intern mumbled, "er... yes..."

After identifying the controller for the mission, Emmerich ordered him to prepare for manual override. It took some blustering and threats but on learning of the sphere, he had made sure in install yes men in NASA for just such an occasion. (He was crazy but he was't stupid.) Emmerich looked at Mission Control's main screen and saw the view from Glen's spaceship. The sphere was in full view and it was time to see what was inside.

"Time to earn my place in history." He put his finger on the button prepared for him and he pushed it.

The world seemed to freeze at that moment. In the years to come people would ask where they were when that day happened. It was like where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked, where were you when JFK was shot. Many were watching television and saw it unfold before them because of the meteor's sake but hardly any of them could remember what they saw. People would remember seeing a blinding flash of light, then the light seemed to take shape. It definitely took shape as it took a reddish gold hue. Then from this atomic fireball took shape the stuff of nightmares.

The glare died down and they saw it; the whole world saw it, a creature the likes of which Dante could never have conceived. It was a one hundred fifty meter tall golden, two tailed, long necked, three-headed dragon. Scales covered the whole of its body and each sinuous tail ended in a spiked club. The beast was bipedal; its legs would be used for walking and its bat-like membraned golden wings stretched far across. On long snaking necks stood the heads each with a crown of horns.

But the eyes! Set in three hideous reptilian faces were six cruel and malicious eyes! The people of the world saw this and knew at that moment that the beast had come to kill them. This soulless murdering satanic thing was a terror from beyond a thousand stars whose kind had left whole arms of the spiral galaxy barren wastes and who's self had slaughtered and butchered and raped to extinction millions of worlds and trillions of lives. It was a demon that had decimated whole civilizations in the blink of an eye, an abomination that would descend on a planet to kill and kill until the sky rained fire and the moon dripped blood. Then when there was nothing left but dust, the unholy abomination would just move on and Earth was next.

The demon looked into the camera and through it at all the people of Earth. And he grinned. This thing cast out and damned turned to the world of men… and he grinned. He opened his maw and spat out a yellow lightning like gravity bolt, destroying it instantly. The people of the world panicked as they saw their television screens go mad with static. They were afraid and rightly, so for King Ghidorah had arrived.

Chapter Eight

"We've lost visual."

General Melissa Rhodes said, "Fix it. Get some cameras going on. We have to know what's going on, if it's attacking the shuttle or Mothra."

"Yes, ma'am."

General Rhodes nodded. She looked at the static filled main screen of the moon base command center. Her command center, she thought to herself. She remembered how Moon Base was built ostensibly for scientific research but also for something else far graver. The UN had created it in the wake of the Mysterian invasion decades ago as the first line of defense if enemies from space were to attack Earth.

She looked over at the rest of her staff and was concerned by what she had seen on the screen before that monster hit that camera and destroyed the rest. What was it called? Salno said it was King Ghidra or something. The general instantly felt her skin crawl at just thinking that name to herself. She felt more nauseous than when she had seen the beast. But she didn't dare show it. Her soldiers looked up to her, their dear old battle-ax. She looked back to the communications station where the technicians were hard at work.

"Well, anything yet?"

"No, sir, nothing yet."

General Rhodes frowned. "All right switch to space radar immediately. And put it on main screen."

"Affirmative"

The screen was once more alive with movement, only this time instead of images it was a standard radar screen. They all heard the space radar operator giving the report.

"Shuttle stationary. Two large objects moving, one significantly slower than the other."

General Rhodes said "The slow one must be Mothra, she was on the meteor when it blew. What about the other object?"

"It's making several passes against her. Spectrometer shows it to be firing energy beams that are..."

"What?" asked General Rhodes impatiently. "What are the energy beams doing?"

"This is impossible but spectrometer and our other instruments show that the beams are creating some kind of gravitational distortion."

"Impossible or not, it's happening." She then turned away from the space radar operator and looked at the rest of the red suited staff in the Moon Base Command Center. "All right people, you heard what the report said and we got its name from Salno. Whatever Ghidra is, it's dangerous and it looks like Earth's first line of defense is finally going to have some fun!" At that, the Command Center burst into cheers. General Rhodes motioned for them to calm down before continuing. "Katsuo Yamabe."

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I want you to pilot Moonlight SY3 to the location. Keep us informed and show us what's happening. King Ghidra has already proven hostile by shooting at Mothra. Use all the capabilities of Moonlight SY3 to destroy it."

Captain Katsuo Yamabe saluted her and said, "I'll do my best, sir. I'll shoot him out of the sky!"

Soon enough Captain Yamabe and his team were in their yellow suits and yellow helmets and on their way to intercept the space demon. Yamabe knew that they should arrive there in a matter of hours, after all Moonlight SY3 was the most advanced spaceship ever built. In a perverse way, he was glad Ghidra was real, it would give him the chance to actually use his ship. For years, Captain Katsuo Yamabe and his crew had been chasing false alarms through the solar system. They knew they should be glad that before then they had only had to deal with that, but still they were more than pleased at the idea of some action.

Walk in the park, Yamabe thought.

/o0o\

"Grandpa, hand me that instrument... Thanks."

Kyle wiped the sweat off his brow. He'd been cleaning a bazooka for the better part of an hour and he was glad to have any help. The tarp did little to keep the sun off his back. Why did Infant Island just have to be in the tropics?

He looked to his workbench and saw the bazooka's component parts were on a table next to him along with Kyle's shirt, he had taken it off in the heat now he was just in a tank top. Over and over he was checking the parts, disassembling them and putting them back together. But more than that, he was checking the shell that would be fired from the bazooka. It was a small—for a bazooka shell—unassuming object. Hidden from sight was a strain of bacteria deep inside; designed to be harmless to humans but deadly to a kaijusaur. And certain death to Godzilla.

The fruit of a thousand nights of labor, it was the end result of Project Toxin and was sure to be the thing to finally kill the monster. Kyle didn't dare let anyone else review it. It had been his creation at U.N.G.C.C. R&D and he thus felt a jealous urge towards it. He knew that he wouldn't be the one to fire it, if it came to that, but if he could make at least this personal, then revenge would be that much sweeter.

He was holding the shell in the palm of his hand when Miki came. She walked in from between some trees wearing some light clothing. "Hi Kyle."

He looked up from his work. "Hello Miki."

"Glad to see you Miki," said Steven. "Did you sleep well?"

Well, she had just had a mind numbing vision; in it had seen that the world was headed for doomsday even as they spoke and that she was in charge of saving it. "I... had a bad dream." That was no lie!

Steven just nodded. "Sorry to hear that."

"Kyle," asked Miki, "What are you working on?"

Kyle ignored her question and mutely checked over the bazooka and the shell.

"Kyle?"

"What?"

Miki walked up to the table and looked over the device. "What is it? Is this the rocket launcher for Project Telepathy?"

Kyle knew that it was impossible to lie to a psychic. Even without using their powers, they could just sense things.

"Kyle... it is for Project Telepathy isn't it?"

He just kept checking and polishing the bazooka. More silence.

A startled look came on Miki's face. "Its not..."

Kyle finally spoke up. "So what if it's not?"

"You don't mean you're going to be helping out Project Toxin do you?"

He glared at her, looking straight in her eyes. "Of course I am Miki, what do you think?"

"I don't believe this Kyle!" she exclaimed. "... You could have at least told me, talked to me, but you went behind my back! ...ugh... I can't believe the gall you had last night 'I'm sorry Miki for being so mean.' You monster!"

Shocked at all she had said, Kyle yelled "Me!? Me the monster!? I'm not the one who smashes Tokyo all day long!"

Miki looked away from him with a dark look on her face. "He should be contained... Don't you think I know that? But if we can stop Godzilla without hurting him, why not try?!"

"Because it can't be done." Kyle sighed and took her hands in his own. "Miki, I know that you care about Godzilla and that he does have some connection to you. He wouldn't knowingly hurt you but what about everyone else? What about the people he places in danger, shouldn't they be protected too? That's what I've been sent to do. I'm here because I was ordered to. The orders came from Director Goodhue himself. I have to do what I must."

Miki froze up at those words and began began hyperventilating. Stephen Martin saw this and placed her hands on his shoulders. "Miki calm down. Kyle's right. Regardless of his personal feelings, he's doing this because he was ordered to; other wise he wouldn't do it. And the orders he does have are to use the Toxin only if Project T fails, but it won't because you won't let it. Will you?"

Miki looked up at her mentor and shook her head.

"No you won't. Miki, you have to do your absolute best because Godzilla will be counting on you. We both know that all force has ever done is tos make things worse. If you succeed, then that will end. When Godzilla first returned, I told Goodhue that there had to be a more effective way of dealing with him than shooting at him and this Project Telepathy is it. Project Toxin won't happen because you won't let it happen, right?"

Miki looked at her shoes. "...Right..."

"Yeah," Kyle weakly said. "My grandpa's probably right. I know you'll be able to pull it off Miki. And once you've done it, Project Toxin and all the rest of it will be on the scrap heap."

"Really Kyle, do you really mean it?"

"Sure." Kyle smiled. "Now when he comes, go and make me proud."

"Su-" Miki froze. She felt it, his presence.

Steven asked "Miki what is it. Are you all right?"

Miki telepathically asked the Elias if it was what she thought it was and all three telepathically said yes.

"Miki?" asked Kyle.

"I'm going to make you proud right now," she said.

"You mean...Godzilla?"

"Yes." Miki looked out to sea. "He's heading for Infant Island."

/o0o\

Mothra was terribly injured. She had been battling King Ghidorah in the vacuum of space for hours and it was beginning to show. Blood from the countless wounds all across her tired body instantly froze her soft fur into crimson ice in the blackness of space. The humans had gotten to safety and were watching the battle from a distance. Many had made it, some had not. Mothra just hoped that if she failed they would be able to escape.

She looked at King Ghidorah and stared him down. That was almost all that was left to her. Bruised and bleeding, her wings were torn and her legs were broken. She didn't dare use her beam weapons because she remembered from her first battle against him, the battle which had imprisoned the King of Terror twelve thousand years ago, that King Ghidorah absorbed energy, all energy. She was restricted to fighting him what few other means she had. Yet she would not yield, she would not fail the planet she had been born to protect. She had beaten him before and if need be she could do it again. She had to...

As for King Ghidorah, he couldn't be better. Hovering in the starry frozen blackness, he was free and ready to rage. In all the millennia that he had been imprisoned, he, ever the sadist, had hoped that he would have something to brutalize when he one day escaped. He never imagined that it would be one of those Guardians that had trapped long ago. However, Mothra would be but the first, the first of trillions more. He was free and he would make the universe bleed once more, he would kill and kill! He would make them suffer and die! He would-! He... would... But, first things first. First he would grind this worm to dust.

King Ghidorah broke the stand off and surged towards his enemy. Mothra dodged the attack just barely, just as the King of Terror had wished. He planned to torment her, to break her, and make her die begging for mercy. He let loose a barrage of his gravity beams and they crashed against Mothra's weakened body. Even as she chirped her agony and the energy shot straight through her, she realized that he was toying with her; this battle was a game to him and he planned to toy with her so that she might have the most wretched of deaths.

Breaking away from the beam attack, she threw herself at the Star of Doom and began furiously slashing with her few good legs. Ghidorah uttered his hideous cry and grabbed her right wing with his mouths and tore it apart. As the red-hot pain burned itself into her core she let loose her poison powder. A suicide gambit for it would deplete her strength, but it was the only when she had left.

And it was a poor one. In the weightlessness on space, the toxin just floated away and what little that did reach the Space Demon was far from enough to hurt him. More annoyed than injured, King Ghidorah spun completely around faster than the eye could see and struck her head with both his spiked tail clubs. Now immobilized in pain, Mothra felt the throbbing agony where a half dozen gaping holes entered her face, some of which went into her blue faceted eyes. In the days to come she would hang between life and death for the spikes were poisoned.

King Ghidorah saw that his enemy was already beaten and was all too disappointed. If only Godzilla were still alive, then he could have a real challenge. Slowly circling his enemy's floating body, the Space Demon was almost reluctant to kill her; it could only end her misery. Then he felt a burning hatred and all six eyes began to glow red. King Ghidorah's whole body began to glow in a golden light as he charged his gravity beams to the utmost. He would obliterate the cursed moth from existence; he favored strong opponents!

But a burst of plasma bolts shot at him changed that. His back still stinging even as he channeled the energy into himself, King of Terror turned to face his new opponents.

"Oh no Ghidra!" yelled Katsuo Yamabe from his captain's chair aboard Moonlight SY3. "Sussano killed his multi-headed dragon and we'll do the same to you!" The Space Demon rushed to the side to dodge the oncoming vessel. A space ship, eh? Then he would have to destroy that too.

"Pilot, turn the ship for another pass," barked Yamabe. "Gunner, arm maser guns to maximum."

"Yes, sir," both men said.

Banking in a sharp turn, Moonlight SY3 raged back firing on King Ghidorah as it did. The Star of Doom smiled as they did so. Fools! They were giving him sustenance because the maser bolts were energy and he absorbed energy!

Mothra saw this and despaired. Gathering what little strength she had left she fired beams from her antenna at the space ship. "What!" Captain Yamabe looked at shock at the screen that showed Infant Island's angel of mercy. "Who's side is she on?! Has that darn bug gone crazy?!" He was about to give the order to fire on Mothra when he saw that King Ghidorah was letting himself be fired upon. If Mothra had known about King Ghidorah to begin with, then what more did she know...

"Break off all maser attacks now!"

"But Captain Yamabe-"

"Do it now! If this thing is a space monster then it would have to use sunlight for food; there's no other source of energy for it. Our energy attacks have just been making it stronger!"

King Ghidorah saw that they were on to him. Oh well if they weren't of any use to him then he might as well destroy them.

"Into the asteroid field! Evasive maneuvers!" The men of Moonlight SY3 did as their captain commanded, but the ship was barely able to dodge as the lightning like bolts rained down everywhere. King Ghidorah extended his wings and flew after them in the airless vacuum firing his rain of death at them. Side to side they moved their ship racing from meteor to meteor, but it was no good. Soon enough a stray bolt hit their engine and left them in mortal danger.

"Status!"

"We're dead in the water captain!"

Even now refusing to submit, "Yamabe took off his yellow helmet and looked through the window shaking his fist as he did so. "Damn you ugly monster! Men, fire all freezer weapons and all conventional explosives!"

At that a blazing torrent of fire and ice was launched at the Demon from the ship. Ghidorah shrieked at this but still held firm. These worms would not defeat the King of Terror! A flurry of gravity beams was launched at them and would put an end to the insects. Or it would have if Mothra hadn't thrown herself in its path. Fine, if Ghidorah could butcher two, then so much the better. With that he increased the force of his beams and Mothra chirped her agony so loudly that even without air to carry the sound, the men of Moonlight SY3 could still hear.

Yamabe looked to his pilot. "Are engines back on line?"

"No captain!" he said. "They're shot dead!"

"Communications send a distress signal. Technician, program self-destruct, everyone else prepare to abandon ship."

But it would not be that simple. King Ghidorah ceased his attack on Mothra, she was no threat, and turned his attention to the ship. Flying past her he trained his eyes on those who would challenge his power. What he did next was really rather diabolical. He let his weakest gravity beams wash over the ship. Nothing blew up; nothing was damaged. That was because King Ghidorah's beams work by increasing the gravitational force on an object to the point that the object exploded outwards under its own weight.

But in weightless space with no up or down, his gravity beams have a very different effect. Instead, they make an object implode. And as weak as the beams he was used on the Moonlight SY3 were, this was made deliciously slow. The ship began to fold in on itself, cracks began appearing all over and inside the crew was beginning to panic. Yamabe, knowing what was happening, rushed to put back his helmet and had his men run to the escape pod. Captain though he was, he would not go down with his ship if he could save just one of his men.

Men without fear, they went to the escape pods hoping to live and fight another day but it was not to be. As the ship was crushed, as walls crumpled and sparks flew everywhere, they got to the escape pods just as they were rendered inoperable. They tore out the panel and desperately tried to rewire the circuits to make it work but they were ruined. Air began to leak out and they began to suffocate, the heat from various reactors skyrocketed. Some lost their courage and began screaming but their Captain slapped them and threatened to kill them for cowardice of the demon didn't kill them first. However, as ship collapsed inwards the nuclear reactor that powered it was clear that the demon would kill them first. It was being crushed and crushed until...

Boom. King Ghidorah liked boom. But with no oxygen in space there was no fire and no sound. But still, King Ghidorah knew they were all dead, probably vaporized, and that their last moments had been one's of fear and despair.

They had been the first but they would be far from the last.

/o0o\

Back on Infant Island everyone was in a swirl of activity. The Islanders had already sought the safety of the caves at the request of their chieftain and Belvera, though they weren't worried that Godzilla would attack. Such people were innocent in his eyes for they were untainted by the "evils" of science. He wouldn't attack them; indeed he might even keep them from harm. But just what if... The Elias, however, were emotionally traumatized by Mothra's defeat at King Ghidorah's hands; without an egg, if Mothra were to die know, she would die forever. They didn't dare let themselves be seen in such state because if the people saw them like that they knew the panic that would ensue.

Back on the surface, the G-Force soldiers were busy preparing for Godzilla's arrival. The computers for Project T were readied and the transmitter was in place. As for who would fire it, the Lieutenant had volunteered Private Johnson for the mission. Racing down to the beach on his motorcycle by the route Miki had given, he only hoped that he wouldn't fail. In a corner, Kyle almost hoped he would so he could use the Toxin.

Private Johnson arrived on the beach and let down his bike on the sand when he saw Steven Martin. Puzzled, the private unslung the pouch containing the launcher and walked past the motorcycle. He took off his sunglasses and asked "Sir, what are you doing here? Its dangerous."

Martin smiled. "Oh it is dangerous all right. I'm here so you could know where to be."

"You mean...?"

Martin uncrossed his arms and held them behind his back. "Yes." Then he looked back out to sea.

The ocean seemed calm enough but then it began to froth and churn. A tail erupted from several hundred meters away from land; swirling and waving above the ocean causing spray as it did. The water then seemed to rise up in a dome as something huge came up from the depths. It exploded in a whitewash of foam as the grim visage showed itself, the face of the King of the Monsters!

Dripping wet, Godzilla threw his head back and let loose his mighty roar. The water swirling around his waist and his tail erect, the King strode towards the island. The world trembled at his presence; invincible, indestructible, immune to all weapons, he was indeed destined to walk the Earth until the end of time. The soldier there began shaking as he saw this but Martin was unmoved. He looked straight up at the monster and merely smirked. "That's it Godzilla, come on to land."

The King of the Monsters looked down at whatever it had been that made that sound. Looking to the ground he raised his brow on seeing that it was an insect, but it was obviously a brave insect. More importantly it was his insect. Twice in his first arrival he'd been seen and once on his return was his presence sensed with several other times afterwards.

"That's right Godzilla; you remember me," said the old reporter. "Come and see what we have to show you."

Godzilla of course couldn't speak English or any human language and the only human he could communicate with was Miki, but he was smart enough to understand the meaning of what Martin was trying to say. Godzilla looked down at Martin as if saying, All right human, show me.

Chapter Nine

"He's made landfall." Hayashida looked away from the screen and out of the tent to see Godzilla rising up from the depths. The beach was so far away from the high, wooded, sandy hill that Godzilla looked almost small; the professor just smirked at that. He rushed back into the tent and looked the staff over before giving them a speech. "All right team, this is it. Years of preparation have all come down to this moment and now we'll all see whether or not it was all in vain. It won't be easy, but I know you can do it."

They all nodded at Hayashida's little pep talk and went back to their jobs with renewed vigor. He went to Miki who was nervously checking the Project T helmet one last time to see if it was all in order; it was. She activated it as she saw the Professor coming. "Is it all ready?"

"Yes Miki. I checked with the men at the computer terminals. They say that it's all hooked up and ready for use. The transmitter itself has been activated and Private Johnson is already on route to deliver it. And the satellite has already been prepped."

"That's great Professor. Let's just hope that the transmitter is put in right."

/o0o\

Meanwhile, in orbit around the Earth, was said satellite. Set in the unending dark, its solar panels were extended to the fullest in order to drink every last drop of the sun's nourishing light. A small LED at its side activated...

/o0o\

Back on Earth, on Infant Island, Private Johnson sped along the sandy beach, forcing his motorcycle to the utmost, to keep up with Godzilla. He tried to ignore the smell. (When you're nose bleeds from the reek of rotten fish and ionized ozone, you know you're getting to close to the King of the Monsters.) It wasn't just the smell though that made his pulse race. The closer Johnson got to the Monster King the more the Earth shook and the harder it was to control his vehicle.

Not for the first time, the Private swore under his breath. Yes, he was under orders and yes he was the best marksman and thus the best suited to fire the shot; but he still cursed his Lieutenant Santos for having "volunteered" him.

Those were the thoughts that raced through the Private's mind as he raced on the beach. As he pulled ahead of Godzilla on his motorcycle, he was still in utter awe of the sheer size if the beast. It was like a living mountain ! The beast stood still like a mighty living colossus at which Johnson took his chance, gunned the engine, and pulled towards Godzilla. He drove at top speed underneath the giant's tail that cast shadows like a mountain and between two giant legs huge like the facing walls of a cliff. The soldier didn't know why the Monster King stood still like that but it was his chance to do his mission.

At the height of head that was up in the sky the dragon looked down at the buzzing at his feet. It was a human. Godzilla saw the human pull away and go on his motorcycle towards a nearby sand dune where it stopped. Didn't those pesky insects have anything better to do than annoy him? He knew that where there was one human there were many others, as numerous as ants they sometimes seemed and just as tiny. The difference was that insects knew their place. But to the visiting humans to whom this one belonged to Godzilla had to give some credit. They had so far left him, alone which was all he had ever wanted from them.

On the sand dune, not concerning him with what Godzilla was standing there for, Private Johnson loaded the transmitter into the rocket launcher and readied himself to take aim. He then pulled the trigger.

/o0o\

"It's in."

Hayashida turned to the technician who said that. "Are you sure? We can't make any mistakes now."

The man checked the data. "I'm sure, sir."

"Communications?" asked the Professor. "Get the Private on line. Ask him to confirm it."

"Already done sir," answered the communications officer. "Shall I put it on speakers?"

Hayashida smiled. "Make it so."

They heard Private Johnson's voice come in tinny through the loud speakers. "Once again, the target has been shot! I repeat, the target has been shot!"

A cheer rose through the room and even Kyle was happy. Soon enough, however, Hayashida motioned for silence and Kyle turned to Miki. He took her hand and said "All right, the transmitter is in and I've done one last check with the satellite. It's ready. I've seen to the techs and they say that your gear is ready." The men at the computers turned away from their machines to give her thumbs up. "Are you?"

She saw that everyone was looking at her expectantly. She looked back at all of them thoughtfully and at last she smiled. "Yes Kyle. I was born ready."

/o0o\

On the Moon Base, the staff was in an uproar. "Any word from Captain Yamabe and his crew?" bellowed General Rhodes as she looked away from the static filled main screen of the Moon Base Command Center.

Astronaut Fuji said "No, sir. We got his distress call and then it went dead. Nothing since."

"Anything from astronaut Glen and his crew?"

"No sir."

General Rhodes silently cursed her luck. "We're going to have to assume that they were damaged or even destroyed. Fuji, I want you to send a search and rescue mission as soon as possible. You-" she turned to someone at communications "-call the UN Security Council and America's White House. Tell them that King Ghidorah has proven hostile and that we sent Moonlight SY3 was sent to intercept. However, it along Mothra, has failed and has been destroy-"

"General it's coming right now!"

"What!?" she yelled.

But she had only to look outside the huge windows surrounding the base to see that a three headed golden dragon was passing directly over them at that very moment. Framed across the infinite diamond studded blackness of space, the golden demon came, blotting out all that which could be seen with his massive frame. The whole base grew silent as a huge shadow passed over them and they all grew frightened as one mocking head of the beast looked back down at them. They didn't know how he had arrived there so quickly or how he had evaded detection until that very moment.

But they did know one thing.

General Rhodes fought back her tears as she saw this. "...Oh no." she whispered. Looking back at the communications, trembling as she did with fear, she screamed, "You have to tell those poor people back on Earth what's happening. You have to tell them Ghidorah's coming!"

/o0o\

Miki was wandering in Godzilla's mind. She had found herself there ever since the technicians had activated the device. As for them, they were stunned by how she-or her body-was in a catatonic state. In the physical world, the whole staff as well as everyone else was looking worried at Miki's frozen self. Kyle for his part anxiously held. They had all known that this might happen; still, they were all worried. After all Miki was their all-star.

As for Miki herself, she wasn't entirely at ease either. While she had communicated with Godzilla in the past several times before, to actually enter his mind... She had braced herself for it but what she saw was totally unexpected. She was in a slum! She was in a filthy, trash strewn ghetto apartment's hallway. The carpet was torn; the walls were carved into and covered with spray paint. It was dark and the stench was unendurable. Indeed, regardless of the fact that "it was all in her head" the place truly stank.

It was indeed strange but when Moll and Lora had met her on the astral plane in her dream the last night, they had told her that her mind would interpret what it saw when it entered Godzilla's as best it could. If the Monster King's mind was that wretched, how miserable he must truly be.

"Godzilla?" Miki looked around for an answer. There was none. She called out again. "Can you hear me? I just want to talk. Is that all right?"

Again, no response. Then suddenly, the lights began to sputter off and on until they began to glow bright and nameplates appeared on the doors of the leviathan's mind. "OK," she said. "I guess he heard me. Well then, this is it."

She turned towards a door and began to open it. She opened it and saw herself on a beach. It was a vast beautiful shoreline that met the bluest, cleanest water she had ever seen. The sky was bright and fine and it was so warm. Pterosaurs were in the sky, leaping ichthyosaurs in the sea. The whole world she sensed was sweet and clean and she felt an aura of happiness. Miki knew that this was how Godzilla remembered his home. She turned around and saw that the door was just a frame and past the opening of to the hallway could be seen. She walked back into the hallway and made sure to close the door behind her.

She continued walking and went to open another door. She entered and saw a pair of Tyrannosaurs walking on the sands of yet another shoreline. They were happy and well fed from their harvesting of the fruits of the sea. Miki wondered what it could mean. Were these Tyrannosaurs Godzilla's friends? But then she saw.

Standing between them was their son. At a mere seven feet tall he was still a baby. This Tyrannosaur that was not a Tyrannosaur was jet black, like his father. There was a row of silver ridges on the young one's back, not to mention that his arms were longer that they should be. Miki could see that it was Godzilla as a child and the Tyrannosaurs there were his parents. That was when a young tan colored ankylosaur like dinosaur about the size of the child Godzilla emerged from the sea. Godzilla was startled by this new comer, though not afraid. Of course, Godzilla feared nothing but this time especially there was nothing to fear. He walked to him with a kind and inquisitive look on his face. The look was returned in kind. It was the first time that Godzilla met his best friend, Anguirus.

Miki cried happy tears at seeing this and she decided to leave silently. She closed the door behind her and again continued her journey.

/o0o\

At the shores of island were Private Johnson and Stephen Martin. The two were watching their charge from a sandy hill via binoculars. They had been there since the start of the operation; the private had been told to stay and monitor the situation. However, he was beginning to get slightly worried. He turned to Martin and asked, "So Miss Segeusa is really inside Godzilla's head?"

Not turning away from the saurian titan, Martin replied, "Yes she is. Not an enviable duty is it?"

"No way. You couldn't pay me to do it. How long does she have to stay in there?"

"Nobody knows. But she will have to stay in his mind until she has him under his control."

The private looked up with his binoculars at the transmitter. He saw a shokillas lice crawling on the back of his neck and some stray barnacles here and there. While the private wasn't worried about the transmitter being damaged by a stray shokillas, he still had his concerns. "Yeah I guess..."

"Something on your mind?" asked the old news hound.

Though Martin was technically just a civilian, he that the old man was a respected adviser and all around Yoda in the halls of G-Force. "Permission to speak candidly, sir."

"You can say anything you want. I'm not a military officer."

The private looked down at his boots before looking up. He searched his thoughts for the right words before they came. "It's just that I don't get it. Why go through all this trouble? That toxin's ready so why not use it? That's what its there for, isn't it?"

"If you only had any idea what you were asking." Martin sighed. A faraway look came across the man's face. "Private, in India they suffer terrible monsoons nearly every year and even now thousands die. The winds rage and the waters flood. Entire villages are destroyed. Nobody knows how to prevent the monsoons from coming, and the best you can do is try and prepare for them as best as you can. Sometimes you're successful; sometimes you're not. The Hindu's even say that its Shiva, the destroyer god, wreaking his powers on mortals."

The old man then turned to the young one. "Godzilla is very much like a monsoon, would you not say?" He saw the private nod. "Now, Private Johnson would it be good to stop the monsoons forever if such a thing were possible?"

The soldier grimaced at the rhetorical question. "What? Of course stopping the monsoons would be a good thing."

Martin's response? "No, it would not."

The private opened his mouth to say something but quickly thought better of it. When Martin didn't continue, however, he forced himself to ask the next question. "But I don't understand, Mr. Martin. You said how much death and destruction is caused by the monsoons. How could you not want to prevent them?"

The old reporter nodded sagely before continuing. "Remember I said that the monsoons come almost every year?"

"Yeah, well what happens if they don't?"

His stentorian voice grew cold. "When the monsoons don't come there comes instead drought that kills millions of people instead of thousands. Without the monsoon to bring the rain, crops can't grow and India suffers famine, starvation, and death. In these times, the Hindus pray for Shiva to return, because he is a destroyer, they know he can destroy the enemy that faces them."

/o0o\

Miki had been in there for hours. Was it hours, seconds, years? She didn't know. Time had no meaning where she was. She had searched tirelessly and had seen when Godzilla first met Anguirus as hatchlings or the first time he spat flame. However, she had searched endlessly for Godzilla and was unable to find him. She called and no answer. She had gone into every door and nothing, just old memories.

All the doors except one.

It was the dirtiest, most cobwebbed, most worn door of all. It was at the end of the hallway that she thought had no end. That alone showed that there was something in there, but what? Something not meant to be seen; something best left forgotten as seen with all the chains and bolts on it. Miki had an idea of what was in it and that was the reason by which she had to find the leviathan. And if anything were to prove able of getting his attention it would be this. Taking a deep breath, Miki began to remove the restraints.

All the while she did that she was telepathically assaulted by a barrage of don't-do-its and you -must-stop-its. When she was done she tried to turn the knob and found that it was rusted shut. After several false starts it finally turned and she opened the door and was stunned by what she saw.

She was on another tropical shoreline, not surprising considering how Godzilla is semi aquatic. While there she saw a monster very similar to Godzilla. It looked just like him only much smaller. It was a mere forty meters tall and was much thinner than the King of the Monsters, not to mention the near absence of spines and the much more forward facing posture. It was obviously a young member of Godzilla's species, a Godzilla Junior.

Junior was clearly a benevolent creature and he knelt down to where Miki was. She smiled and even laughed as he ran his tongue over her in a gesture of love. She followed the cheerful young kaijusaur as he walked away towards an area with various godzillasaurs. Miki wondered what could this mean? What could be so horrible about Junior that Godzilla locked away this thought?

It was then that Miki saw it. The place she was taken to was Godzilla's ancestral nesting ground, the one she saw in the vision given by the Elias. She looked forward and saw Gigantis, Godzilla's mate run her tongue over her beloved son. She saw Junior walk toward the nest where he became a mist. At first the mist was the same shape that Junior had been before dissipating and being absorbed into the nest mound.

Oh dear God... thought Miki. Junior was the son that Godzilla never had, the one who died when... Oh no! In panic Miki looked up and saw a ball of fire in the sky magnified in Godzilla's mind by the hate he had for what was inside. The dinosaurs were totally unaware, oblivious to the fireball as it hurtled towards them.

And there was laughter.

She screamed her words telling the dinosaurs to run, hide, anything. But no sound came as everything grew slow. Gigantis heard her though and was slightly disturbed. But she looked away to the nest. Miki screamed louder that it was coming! But they wouldn't hear.

Gigantis looked at the pack's children. They were barely out of the nest and yet they were already at her nest waiting anxiously for the arrival of their cousin. How they would love playing with him! Gigantis knew that for she nuzzled them happily. Miki began to scream louder. Once again she turned around to see the human, this time visibly frightened. As if not wanting to believe it she nervously turned to her nieces and nephews and ignored Miki.

Then, with a boom that would deafen a trillion thunderstorms and a light that would burn the sun, a meteor crashed to Earth tearing open a gash 125 miles wide and ten miles deep. Miki was transported to the site itself.

And there was laughter.

It was a burning white flame like a strobe light. She was blinded but somehow she could still see. She saw and wept. The lizard kings who ruled their saurian empire that stretched across the globe in air, land, and sea for 160 thousand millennia were made dust. As if the gates of Hell had been thrown open, a firestorm scorched Creation until the dinosaurs there were incinerated into burnt paper. The few that weren't charred to death immediately screamed and bellowed and roared as they felt their flaming skin melt off their bones. Then the blast wave from the meteor hit them and they flew apart like leaves.

And there was laughter.

Farther away, the world began to shake at what its future rulers would call a ten on their Richter scale. Yes, the earth parted and the mountains fell. A hurricane shock wave of force flew across the land destroying all. It was a wall of flame that razed the land to bedrock. The mightiest of trees, trees centuries old, broke apart like matchsticks and then dinosaurs, stones, trees, all things were blasted away like so much powder.

Then, for the briefest second the wind stopped as if the carnage was finally over. Yet it had not stopped, far from it. Instead it began to blow in the opposite direction tearing apart everything as their remains were immolated in the ever-growing dust cloud that would melt the heavens and scrape the sky. Indeed, the mushroom cloud could even have been seen from the moon.

Back on Earth, all over the world of the dinosaurs, the Final Day came to pass. The global earthquakes began tsunamis that engulfed continents. From the sky there rained down fire & acid and with this living flame came death. What wasn't killed by the impact burned alive from the global forest fires caused by impact debris and the acid rain made for the meteor having fallen in limestone. But all too soon it all grew dark and cold. Deathly cold as the debris spread like a gray pall over the world that blotted out the sun itself and plunged the earth into an eternal night. A summer that lasted 10,000 times 10,000 years ended and thus began a winter that would last for a millennium. Robbed of the life giving sun, the world began to die.

And there was laughter.

But for Miki the worst was what she saw next. In the land that the one day be called Japan, there was Godzilla. The sky was gray and the dust blotted out everything. He saw the carnage, the slaughter, so horrible that it was as if the rain that fell were the tears of heaven. His home was in ruins and the nests, among them HIS nest, which held his pack's children trampled. Among those ruined nests, was that of his son.

Godzilla saw the suffering. His mate dismembered into bloody chunks and the mutilated body parts arranged into happy little patterns. The dinosaurs who followed him were splattered across the rocks and were washed away in the rain. For trying to protect the king's son their liquefied bodies were smeared across the entire coastline. Their heads were left pointing in a direction. No wonder that the Elias had tried to spare Miki such horror but then she heard laughter...

Miki looked up and saw it. She saw the demon spawn of evil laughing in perverse joy at the death and suffering it had wrought. It was a mockery of life forged in the blasphemous image of the king of hate. Yes, it had been forged with a hammer of sin on an anvil of pain for the demon spawn would sit upon a throne of blood. It was Ghidorah and he had come to make the world bleed.

She saw him flying back and forth raining down his gravity beams on the land killing the dinosaurs and desecrating the earth. Godzilla saw those he had been born to protect suffer and die. They were tortured and made to beg for a mercy that never came. Miki saw Godzilla fueled by sheer rage, and mad with hate as he fought the butcher. He fought and failed for before the final blow was struck against the all but defeated King Ghidorah, brought forth the meteor to strike down the world.

Then everything disappeared. Everything was gone. Though she could clearly see herself and the roiling mist that circled her feet, Miki was in total darkness as she looked around to see the void. Then she saw the bones rise from the shadow. They were dinosaur bones, billions and billions of them. They flew threw the air and came together as if every single fossil skeleton on display in every museum in the world was brought together and then brought to life. Yet these living dead were not there to be mere curiosities. They had come for vengeance.

Miki was in Godzilla's mind and heard what he heard, understood what he understood and with that she knew what the living dead "said" in the words of her kind. With Anguirus's bones leading them, over and over there were cries of "You failure!" "You weren't there for me!" "You let him kill me!" "The end of our world is your fault!" Again and again and again until every last skeleton turned to dust and screamed like a lost souls burning in hell the "words" "WHY COULDN'T YOU SAVE ME!?"

Then all was silent. All was still. Save for two. Miki saw a beam of light coming to the ground. Huddled in that light were two kaijusaurs, Gigantis and Junior. Gigantis then looked up past the light at Godzilla who's mind this was. If his mate's thoughts could be made into human speech, was this: "Why couldn't you save us, Godzilla?"

Then she too disappeared and a wave of anger washed over Miki. She knew it was Godzilla and Miki felt his rage.

"Hello Godzilla," she dryly said. "How are you today?"

She felt his fury. Why was she there!?

"I needed to talk to you and this seemed to be the only way to get your attention."

How much had she seen?

"Enough Godzilla. This is why I have to talk to you?"

For what? She had no right to enter through the forbidden door!

"But it was for what's in the door that I had to find you!" pleaded Miki. "I don't care how crazy this will sound but you're going to have to believe me. King Ghidorah is coming!"

King Ghidorah... At that Miki felt an anger that shook the world that she was in, a fury with out end at the mere mention of the cursed name.

"But its true Godzilla!" said Miki. "It's true!" She looked around the darkness, her feet enveloped in mist. She in a harsh spotlight for all Godzilla's attention was placed on her. "...It's true," she said with a whisper. "I don't know when he will come but he might be here on this world right now. You must be ready for this you must believe me Godzil-"

All of a sudden everything went static and mad. Miki ceased to see everything and went unconscious. With a pain she couldn't believe and that would leave her sick for days when she woke up in the physical world. Barely but she did moaning all the while. Immediately, the technicians were trying to put out the fires that had sprung up from their control panels. Everyone was unsure at what had happened and was trying to find out.

They couldn't have known what had really happened and wouldn't learn for a while. But most everyone else in the world knew perfectly well exactly what had happened. All over the world communications were going down, signals lost, any electronic message that was sent by satellite vanished. In Earth's orbit, King Ghidorah had spent the better part of several hours imploding satellite after satellite with his gravity bolts to leave the planet below helpless. One of them had been the UNGCC satellite. That was destroyed along with the UN's international space station and countless other orbital platforms. All were manned, and all men aboard were now dead.

/o0o\

In the end, nobody knew if Peru's capital was unlucky or if there was a reason that it attracted the Star of Doom. For whatever reason a star fell from heaven like lightning that day and crashed towards the city. Air traffic controllers had some idea but even they had no idea what was happening. The only ones to have an idea were some non-entity paper pushers taking a lunch break atop the roof of their office building. They merely felt a slight shadow and a rush of wind before being liquefied underneath so many tons of space monster along with all the thousands of helpless innocents in the hospital itself.

In Peru's capital city, gloating for murdering those he'd trampled under his feet, King Ghidorah threw his head back and screamed his madness to the skies in a voice like a hundred pieces of broken glass razed along a hundred blackboards. The buildings around were rubble from the force of the impact and the people of the city all looked up to scream and panic.

King Ghidorah had finally come. And it was time for doomsday.

Chapter Ten

Ever since the sphere had been made public, it had been on everybody's mind. Scientists wrote article after article, all the cable and satellite channels had documentaries about it, it had gone viral over Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, everything. Most of the talk on the chat rooms was devoted to whether or not it should be opened.

When it finally was opened, the entire world watched it on TV either at their own houses or in friends'. The people of Earth had been watching live footage from reporters aboard the UN Space Station that was in turn received from the actual people on site. The people of Earth in turn saw it on various channels: Telemundo, United World Television News, CNN, Al Jazeera, Fox News. They had been there when watching when Mothra mysteriously had attacked the crew, they had watched when President Emmerich remotely opened the sphere, and they had been watching when King Ghidorah had finally escaped.

When that happened, a wave of horror washed over the watching masses. Just as quickly those watching tried not to panic, they reassured themselves that it was a hoax, that it had be a hoax. There was no way to either confirm or deny that desperate belief as every feed from the site had been reduced to static. Not to mention the various governments involved had ordered an instant freeze on all information. It wouldn't do any good however as the world would soon learn for itself what had happened and the people in Lima, Peru, already knew for themselves firsthand.

King Ghidorah had only been in the city for a matter of minutes but it was already half destroyed. His unholy cry, the cry of an evil god of war, was like the screams of a madhouse under a full, leprous moon. That alone shattered windows across the city and left ears bleeding. However, the people of Pizzaro's city quickly saw that such cries were the least of their worries.

It was not without reason that King Ghidorah was called the King of Terror for the people of the city were already infected with his most potent weapon: The Fear. They were panicking, running, screaming curses in Spanish and Quechua. All semblance of order was gone as people in high rise apartment threw themselves off roofs and those in cars, mad with panic, ran people over thinking to save them from the demon before crashing their cars into the nearest building. All ran for their lives, trampling to death scores of people underneath them as they did so.

However, while the Star of Doom reveled in the torment of spirit, he also delighted in the torment of body. Building after building exploded under the barrage of the three headed monster's gravity beams with everyone in them crushed to bloody death. He crashed his heads against every edifice and lashed with his clubbed tails. He crushed all underneath him with his heels. The rubble of that which he destroyed fell as though a house of cards, crushing smaller buildings as they fell. Lima's many slums were the first to made dust but soon its high rise apartments and single family homes were vaporized as were the expressways out.

Building after building, the Plaza de las Armas, the great Government Palace-Peru's White House-, were all made smoking cinders. The National Stadium and the University of San Marcos, South America's oldest center of higher learning, were made dust as well. When the three headed monster saw that fires had begun, he began beating his 175 meter wide wings , causing a hurricane winds that fanned the flames and furthered destruction. Even as gravity beams destroyed a building his wings would beat the rubble away and send in crashing into another building that was then destroyed in turn. Cars, people, trees, all were blown away like burning leaves.

Then the Star of Doom stopped his onslaught. He was pleased that the fires fanned by his wings would burn for weeks and hamper any rescue efforts. Those who weren't dead would soon be with the Fear. Three heads cackled; ten thousand years and he still had it! Though the attack had lasted less than five minutes, there was nothing but a smoldering crater to show that a great city had once been there. In five minutes, a city that had lived for more than four hundred fifty years was made a funeral pyre for more corpses than would ever be recovered. A nuclear explosion couldn't have done a better job.

And like a nuclear explosion, he left something that would poison the land for a time indefinite. His "son," Death Ghidorah, had the power to steal life and he gained it from his sire's ability to poison the life force of the earth with his unholy Taint. Quite unlike his spawn who merely stole life, however, King Ghidorah spread death. Because of how his aura of suffering infected all it touched, the land where Lima had been would remain a lifeless wasteland for decades, perhaps even centuries, where not even bacteria could survive. In weeks, seemingly healthy survivors would fall dead as emaciated skeletons wallowing in their own filth. Gloating for the blood of millions that stained him King Ghidorah just flew away.

He was already past the coastal desert and over the Pacific Ocean when suddenly he froze. He sensed something... familiar. Hovering in mid air, perfectly motionless as if a puppet held by strings, he turned to the coastal desert and then to the sea. He looked there in silence disbelieving what he sensed. It couldn't be him. Not him after all those millions of years, could it? He stretched his senses to their limits and saw it to be the same blood, the same scent he felt long ago.

It was Godzilla, the one warrior who had dealt him his only defeat. He couldn't believe it yet it was true! To think that he not only had the chance to beat Mothra to a pulp but to take vengeance on his greatest foe. The battle between them in the Mesozoic Wars had shaken the pillars of heaven as they sought to see who would be the stronger; to see who would cover whom in the other's blood first. Or in his mate's blood. King Ghidorah grinned wickedly at that memory. So then the war between these eternal enemies would begin again! Let it be then! Let the fire awaken once more; let the land ring with battle; let the blood flow hence forth! Yes! YEEE-

All of a sudden, King Ghidorah was broken from his revelry by blow to his side. Enraged, he turned to face his foes and saw the insects that had stung him.

In his Cessna A-37B Dragonfly fighter-bomber, Captain Chavez saw that one of his squadron had scored a direct hit on the monster's side. Launched mere minutes earlier from one of Peru's few aircraft carriers, their mission was clear: search and destroy. He spoke Spanish into his helmet's COM system. "Base this is Alpha Leader, report a direct hit." Back on the aircraft carrier the men kept their hopeful feelings silent. Although the slow squat planes were meant for brush fighting, the US had made them for that purpose during Vietnam, Captain Chavez was knew that he and his men had to defeat the thing and avenge their capital.

King Ghidorah turned his rightwards head towards the slight off coloring where the missile had struck his wing and he merely willed it to normality. Captain Chavez stared in disbelief and ordered "Alpha Leader to Alpha Squadron, Evasive maneuvers! Lock on and prepare to engage!"

His wingmen did as they were told and dodged like flies the bolts that King Ghidorah rained down on them firing their forward cannons and missiles all the while. Thousands of rounds were pelting the Bane of Life but he would not die. The Bane of Life was death itself and death can never die.

One pilot flew his plane as fast as it could strait at King Ghidorah firing missiles and bullets all the while but the closer he flew to the space demon the more his controls malfunctioned. When he finally flew past the creature, his control panel exploded in a blaze of sparks. It glided for a while under its own momentum before crashing amidst the red flaming ruins below. The three-headed monster's ability to absorb energy made it a living EMP field for fifty feet in all directions.

"Maldicion!" cried Captain Chavez. "All pilots break away for another pass. Avoid close contact and ready remaining missiles."

As they were told, his wingmen all broke away and circled for one last pass. They all readied their remaining air-to-air missiles and fired all at once. Chavez saw his wingmen's jets fire their missiles and soon a series of explosions covered King Ghidorah; five all over his body, his wings, his trunk, his legs, all in flames. And then the flames were absorbed into him and undoing any harm, however minimal, to his frame.

They had done their best. Now it was King Ghidorah's turn. One gravity beam later and that was that. The pilots and their planes were made flaming shrapnel that fell ever so slowly to the ground. Except, of course, for their Captain.

But with all rounds and missiles spent, there was only one way left to send the creature to hell: ram him. However this was exactly what he wanted because he had deliberately spared Captain Chavez. The plane was rushing straight towards King Ghidorah when the demon gave ever so gentle gravity beams from his two outer heads. Unable to understand what was happening Captain Chavez watched in silence as his plane slowed down. The gravity beams were enough to work like a tractor beam and held the man's jet in place regardless of the efforts to free it.

He then looked into the cockpit with his remaining central head forced his will into the man's mind. The brave Captain Chavez fought as his mind was raped by the King of Terror's cruel will but it was of no use. The three headed monster made sure that his victim was fully conscious of everything that happened next. He was a prisoner in his own body and, though he fought tremendously, was was made to fly his plane north to the city of Carrabaylo where he crashed it into the tallest building killing hundreds. His remains were never recovered.

Now perhaps, King Ghidorah could go and wreak his vengeance without interference from those wretched little insects. He had scoured from countless worlds many other insects, and this world would be no different. He then flew away at top speed of Mach 4 to Infant Island unopposed. Well, yes there was that aircraft carrier, but he sank it soon enough.

/o0o\

On Infant Island, fear ruled but it was kept in check by the three Elias. Moll and Lora were barely able to function, psychically linked to the suffering Mothra, but they did their duty. It was partly for their love of Mothra, they knew it was what she would have wanted, and because their sister Belvera kept them at it.

She was flying through the caves aboard her cyborg drakling Garu-Garu when she found the Chieftain. "Are the people inside the caves? Have they been taken to safety?"

"That they have Elias," replied the white bearded old man. "Our people have found shelter."

"Good, and the outsiders?"

Gripping his staff he answered "Your kin have gone to find them and warn them to safety."

"Alright." She then gave a sly smile to chief. "You better get going there yourself. They're gonna be needing you there."

He bowed low. "Guard yourself then, servant of Battra."

Raising herself to her full height on Garu-Garu's back she returned the courtesy. "Guard yourself then, servant of Mothra."

Hurrying away on her steed's wings, she soon enough found her sisters and the outsiders. She found them arguing. She heard Kyle Martin ask them "What do you mean? What danger?"

"King Ghidorah is coming," said Moll. "He is a terrible monster and we must seek shelter."

Lora frantically nodded. "She's right!" she the younger sister nearly screamed. "He'll be here any moment and try to kill is all! The caves of the island are the best bet we have."

Lieutenant Santos didn't even bother looking at Hayashida. "Alright, lets do it. Communications, call everyone in the field and tell them what's happening. Tell them to take only what they can carry and to meet us in the caves as soon as possible. NOW!"

/o0o\

On the beach, Godzilla groggily opened his eyes. Was he even on a beach? The last he remembered was seeing Miki. Before that he had been on the beach before darkness overcame him. He was sure that where ever Miki was she was alright. She did have Kyle to protect her, regardless of how much the King of the Monsters might loathe the worm.

Godzilla looked over to the lush verdant isle behind him and the sweet blue sea before him. But one thing that figured Godzilla's mind was what Miki had said. How did she know about King Ghidorah? Godzilla could only guess as to wh-

Godzilla froze. He looked over to the ocean for he sensed something coming from that direction. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true! It couldn't be that King Ghidorah was free...?

/o0o\

Back in the ruins of a shantytown near Lima, a sixteen year old boy named Ramon stumbled a midst the chaos around him. He had been in his family's tin and cardboard hovel when he had heard the noise and walked outside to what was happening. He had seen King Ghidorah strafing the city; his first impulse was to go and warn his family. He had run back to the shack where his parents were when Captain Chavez and his wingmen had flown to their doomed mission against the monster. They had flown so low, in fact, over the pueblo joven that the sonic booms had flattened houses.

Ramon had been in the shack when it collapsed. He had been slow to recover consciousness and when he did so it was to find that his parents were injured. However they were still alive which was more than what could be said of the poor souls in Lima. His parents had left themselves leaning on the edge of the shack cared for by neighbors. His father had told him to find his grandfather and that was where Ramon was going to now.

But if they only knew where he was being sent... King Ghidorah's Fear had already infected the people in Lima's outlying shantytowns causing the people inside to go mad. Taking care not to be seen, Ramon had watched men walking around in circles muttering to themselves or walking into walls again and again. One that particularly disgusted him was a man that had been vomiting over and over, each time picking up the vomit and eating it so that he could cast it out yet again. Now that King Ghidorah had left, the effects of it were far less-earlier, mothers had been taking meat cleavers to their babies and men were knifing themselves long after they should be dead, though most envisioned themselves accosted by their worst nightmares come to life-but the effects were still there.

While he didn't know it, Ramon selfless desire to find his grandfather was what all that kept him from being infected with residual Fear. He still checked his feet to see if spiders were crawling on them, though; he was scared of spiders. He knew his grandfather wouldn't be in the city, but in the ruins of Pachcamac, an old Incan ruin south of Lima. It should have been a climb of several hours over the thick grass of the highlands but it was shortened to minutes thanks to a motorcycle he had "borrowed" from its owner. With the man dead he had no use for it.

Ramon soon arrived at the ruins and saw them and the huge stone that towered over all of them. His white haired, leather skinned grandfather knelt at the statue's foot, seemingly in prayer. He was always there. He had sought to pass the guardianship of the temple to his son, Ramon's father, but he had left for the city and married outside the tribe. But grandpa always had me, the boy thought with a smile.

Ramon looked up at the statue and was indeed cowed by its awesome visage. Some twenty five meters tall, it was shaped like some stout ugly man; so stout that it was more like a mammoth dwarf for indeed such were its proportions. Its fist were great grey blocks of stone and its face was hideous. With round, leering eyes; jutting fangs from a vast maw; and scarred pitted ears; it was frightening idol. On its head was a crown covered with jagged, irregular, spikes and at its side was a stone sword. It was carved from a single block of stone and rivaled even the Aztec steppe pyramids of the sun and the moon of Mexico. The gargantuan statue had caused shock among western anthropologists when documentary filmmaker/explorer Carl Denham found it in 1931. It would shock the world again.

"Grandpa?" cried Ramon. "Grandpa, are you here?" Hearing his grandson call him, the Indian shaman finished the last quechua chants and got up. Ramon ran to his grandfather and held him tight. "Grandpa! Are you alright? Are you hurt? Is anything wrong?"

He ran his hand across Ramon's back. "Child, you seem disturbed."

"Disturbed?!" cried the boy. "Lima's been destroyed! A monster fell from the sky and began spitting lightning and making hurricanes and making everyone crazy! Yes I'm disturbed! Father has sent me to find you, see if you're alright. I knew that you would be here."

The Indian coolly separated himself from his grandson's grasp. "I'm well but my health is the least of any of our troubles."

Ramon nodded. "Grandpa we got to get mom and dad and then get out of here."

He looked at the boy; stone would have been more expressive than his emotionless face. "We will see to my son's safety but we will not leave."

"Why not?"

He placed a hand on Ramon's shoulder. "Because its time."

Ramon gasped. "You mean..." All the years of training flashed before him, all the times he ran away from home to hear his grandfather's stories of the stone giant. Long ago, after the Great Flood, the king Ayer Manco Capak founded the city of World Pole for such had been the command of Viracocha, the Incan god of wisdom, and Inti, god of the sun. While there, the holy men foresaw a dark future so horrible that all the armies of men would be worthless against it.

So to stop it, all the wise men and sorcerers and priests built a mighty idol to stand against the evil when it finally came. A thousand men from across the empire came and gave their blood so that he might live. He was awake just long enough to know of the sacrifice that we had made to give him life and vowed that when the evil came he would awaken again and fight to the end against the evil.

Most of the Incas thought that the evil was the invading Spaniards when they came. But when he failed to come people lost faith in their stone champion. For generations, however, the idol's priests kept vigil and trained their successors in secret all the way down to an old Indian who trained his grandson. Said grandson had trained feverishly from the day he was born, learning every legend, every prayer that he would need to do his duty should the day come. The day had come.

Grinning ear to ear, Ramon literally hopped up and down. "We're gonna do it! We're gonna do it! I gonna get my own monster! The big guy is going to wake up and I'm going to guide him!"

The old Indian cracked his face of stone with a smile. "Yes dear grandson. At long last, Majin Tuol will awake!"

Chapter Eleven

The caverns of Infant Island were vast and went deep into the roots of the mountains. They were home to the people of the island and provided refuge in times of trouble. Now, in this darkest hour, the main area was completely empty save for two.

The main area was used for ceremonies, for every day business and for general living quarters. At the bottom of an extinct volcano the hellfires were long since gone and in its place was a floor of black sand. The sand was always warm and the sky was seen through the mouth, which let in the sun's sweet light. The place could easily hold twice the population of the island. It was here that the feast of plenty had been held mere days earlier. And it was here that Mothra and Battra made their chambers.

Indeed at that very moment, Battra, washed in soft light from the volcano's top, rested atop his altar carved for him millennia ago. The steps that led to the cracked circular top were worn and vines grew out of it but Mothra's dread brother treasured it. At its base were a cross and a yin yang symbol with the dark side raised up. Next to it was Mothra's pedestal; identical except for how the yin yang symbol's light side was prominent. …His dear sister. She had been terribly injured perhaps dead. He would have to fight their perpetual enemy even though he knew he might not return. And Belvera hated him for that.

She was zipping back and forth on Garu-Garu, screaming curses in Lemurian, Elias, English, and Japanese at her other half. She continued doing so, slightly amusing Battra with her ability to foul mouth in so many tongues, until she finally stopped. With tears in her eyes and slightly trembling, she zipped on Garu-Garu right in front of Battra's face, right between his multi-faceted, red eyes to scream "Are you crazy!?"

He didn't know, he hadn't gone to a healer recently...

"Don't you smart mouth me Battra! I am not going to let you fight King Ghidorah! You've know how strong he is... You can't win!"

He had beaten King Ghidorah once before and he would do so again.

"You fool..." Belvera whispered. She stood up to her full height on Garu-Garu's saddle and pointed an accusatory finger as she yelled, "You had all the other Guardian Monsters to help you last time! Now you don't even have Mothra. You know how strong he is. It's suicide!" Her voice began cracking. "And if he does kill you what then, hmmm? What will happen to us? For all we know Mothra's dead and without an egg laid, that means she's dead forever. That means you're all the Lemurians have left. Even when the Flood destroyed the old lands, they stuck it out because they had you and Mothra to believe in... They can't lose you. I can't lose you..."

It was for them that he was going to fight. If he didn't oppose the space demon, it would surely kill them all. He was slightly stronger than Mothra and considering that those two had fought, then perhaps King Ghidorah had been sufficiently weakened for victory to be claimed.

With that he began flapping his wings and rose into the air, up past the walls of the volcano, up past its mouth. On its bottom was left behind Belvera. She was on the stone slab on the Seal of Elias, the mark of her foremothers. She stood in silence as Garu-Garu walked on all fours towards her to nuzzle her and offer comfort. She looked to him and ran her hand over his head. It was a far cry from the angry Belvera who would beat his head for no reason at all. God knows how she used him as her punching bag during the Gigamoth incident, her very darkest episode.

Now she looked up at the sky to where Battra was feeling anger, love, sadness, and admiration. A final tear of sorrow came from her face as she said through a smile "...You magnificent idiot..."

/o0o\

Standing before the statue of one of Peru's pagan gods, Ramon had heard his shaman grandfather's tale of Tuol, stone champion of the Inca. He had been told that the statue was a living thing and that it would fight King Ghidorah.

All he could was frenetically say, "C'mon granpa, lets do it, lets do it, lets do it!"

"Patience," said the stone faced Indian. "Please wait for me to finish the magic."

"Gran- ...I... yes"

It was hard to reign in his insane enthusiasm but Ramon forced himself had waited his whole life for this and he wasn't going to screw it up. I'm finally going to get my own monster!

The shaman kneeled before Tuol and to recite the very last of his chants. Ramon was about to protest his grandfather's thoughts when he felt a tremor shake the ground. The tremor passed and the old Indian looked to his grandson. He smiled and said "Just watch."

Even now Ramon was worried. He walked towards the statue and touched it. With a short yell he withdrew his hand shock for it was burning hot. Then the shaking resumed once more and the saucer eyes began to glow. The whole statue began to shake and it even began to move!

The boy fell on his back and screamed, "Yes he's alive! My monster's alive!"

The old Indian looked with a smile at Tuol. It had removed itself from the pedastal and was looking back and forth; a loud scrape was produced every time he turned his stone head. "Yes Ramon. I know he's alive." he had to suppress a slight chuckle on seeing his grandson's face.

"W-w-what... does this mean?"

The old Indian answered that Ghidorah would have to be stopped but Ramon barely heard what his grandfather said. The boy's breath came in short shallow gasps and his hands opened and closed. Every dream he ever had was coming true in that one moment. The boy lurched to his feet, sure of what to do. He looked to the idol in silence before finally making his answer. "What do I do?" he said between breaths.

The old priest said, "Tuol has been awakened but he needs someone to guide him and to give him his mission. The one who does so must be of Inca blood, descended from the shamans who gave him life those thousands of years ago and it must be innocent blood." A dagger was pulled out. "You."

He looked down at the blade and smiled as he held out his hand. This is what it all comes down to.

The old shaman took his grandson's hand and with a quick swipe cut it. Ignoring his yelp of pain, he said "Place your blood on Tuol's skin so that he may know that you are of the same line that gave him life."

"Yes granpa." Trembling, he walked to the idol and did as he was told. He was afraid of being burned, but when he placed his bleeding hurting hand on the statue it was suddenly cool. Then Tuol began shaking more fiercely and his eyes glowing brighter. Ramon was trembling too but his grandfather steadied him. Tuol stopped and then he looked down at them. He knelt until his huge ugly face was mere inches away from the two that had awakened him. Ramon was overshadowed by the stone giant and slightly frightened by glowing eyes and by the hideous jutting fangs in front of him but he held his ground.

A thought suddenly entered the boy's mind. "Uh, grandpa, I never asked you but... how do I tell him what to do? I mean, will he even understand Spanish?"

The old man was bandaging the boy's hand and didn't even bother to look up. "He is a being of magic. He hears the words from your heart."

He nodded and looked at his hand. His mouth suddenly felt dry and he realized just how small he was next the great big monster. "Tuol, I am Ramon Bolivar, descended from the Incan priests that gave you life." He looked straight at the idol's face in front of him but hesitated. What was I thinking... This is crazy this is- That's when he saw his grandfather. The old man was normally emotionless but he saw the quiet pride in the man's eyes and steeled himself. Yeah, this is crazy. Crazy good!

"Tuol, I... I come to give you your mission." Now more confident he spoke from the heart. "A ugly freak called King Ghidorah has blown up the city! The city is in ruins and people are dying and I guess he's gone looking for more people to kill. You were made to be a protector so start protecting! Will you help us?"

Tuol looked at the boy and then stood up to his full twenty-five meters. Towering above them, he nodded his ugly head. His stone ears heard their joyful cries of Ramon and his grandfather. He lowered his hand to the ground for them to climb to and when they did he raised them up into the sky and began walking to the sea. He quickly strode down past the grass of the highlands, past the herds of llama and bands of Indians there. He strode onto the hot sand of the coastal desert, his stone body scraping with every step. He walked and walked until he approached a slight rise that was all that separated him from the capital city of the children of his makers. But when he rose over it he stopped.

Though his was a stone heart in a stone breast, it broke as he saw the carnage below. He lowered his hand to let his passengers off. No sooner did they touch ground that he raised his stone fists and opened his gaping stone maw for a loud and terrible cry to come out. The stone giant began to stride forward following his enemy's stench.

Ramon and his grandfather hurried after it as he strode past the shantytowns. On seeing Tuol many, of course, ran in fear despite his two human guides scrambled ahead of him telling the people that the stone giant had come to protect them. Even with that and them knowing the local legend, it was all they could do to keep the newly arrived army from opening fire. Tuol kept walking, scaring a bus load of relief workers sent by Peru's Army, and into the ruined cobblestone streets and past the ravaged buildings of the capital. Many of the streets were still consumed by firestorms, but that didn't matter to him. He continued onwards until he reached the Pacific Ocean.

Tuol waited for Ramon and the old Indian to reach the sandy shores. When the two finally got there and saw him, he nodded at them and strode into the ocean. The two watched in shock as they saw this, as they saw Tuol lurch forward into the water and keep going until even his crown of spikes disappeared under the surf.

Ramon held his hand. He looked down at the red stained bandage.. The scar would be there for the rest of his life but he wanted it to stay there. It would be his perpetual proof of the part he played in helping mankind to survive the Monster Wars.

Then he looked up from the hand to the sea and blurted out, "Hey wait a minute, I'm supposed to the tagalong kid. Come back here Tuol!"

/o0o\

Godzilla was on the beach. As much as stretched his senses, he couldn't detect any humans. They had gone into hiding for what was coming. He turned around to the ocean, his feet carving holes into the sand and his cedar tree like tail crashing into the nearby rocks and making them dust. He could feel it approaching; the King of Terror. He heard a cry and looked up to see what it was. It was Battra. He was flying at utmost speed away from the island and towards the sea. He had no hope for Battra's victory, nor would he wish him any.

Vengeance would be Godzilla's and Godzilla's alone.

Battra flew through a thick cloud bank and he couldn't see what was ahead of him though he knew that Infant Island was close behind him. Still, his other senses told him what was coming and he knew that King Ghidorah was coming next. Though afraid he might fail his sister, he readied himself for the fight regardless of the cost to himself. Or so he thought because when he emerged from the clouds his courage ran like water when he saw the dread visage of the King of Terror.

The Star of Doom hovered motionless in the skies above the tropical blue-green sea, ready and grinning for the battle. He remembered the Battle Mothra, oh yes he did. He was ready to show the insect who was the stronger for, although Battra and the others may have imprisoned him, he had been far from defeated. His wings were still and his heads cackled, mocking the bright sun and the light's champions. Battra was also hovering, with wings beating ever slowly as he stared down the demon spawn of evil. Though Battra had been worshipped as a god by some, he pleaded with the true God to receive his soul if he were to die this day.

And so the battle began.

Battra flew up into the sun. King Ghidora instinctively followed with his eyes and looked into the glare. It was an age-old tactic, and it still worked. The demon was blinded and couldn't see what was happening or when Battra flew out and rammed the King of Terror's chest head on. King Ghidorah fell down through the air before regaining himself and all three heads simultaneously looked back and forth for the insect.

Battra was already wheeling around for another pass. He didn't dare use his prism beams for he knew of his enemy's energy absorption. He then flew in from behind and spun like a top so that his wings might beat against Ghidorah's back. They did but before they could be used to their fullest, King Ghidorah spun around in mid air striking Battra with the poisoned spiked clubs on his tails. They met with a sickening crunch on Battra's face and it sprayed his yellow blood everywhere.

Hovering in place and looking at the Star of Doom, yellow blood dribbling from his cheek, Battra was frightened, more frightened than he had ever been before. Nobody had ever been able to dodge his attack! What was he thinking... if Mothra had been unable to stop him, what chance did he have! He had to change his tactics...

King Ghidorah watched Battra try to escape... perfect. The Fear was doing its job well. He could already feel the insect's delicious horror. He pursued in a one sided aerial dogfight, firing his gravity bolts all the while. Consumed by panic, Battra dodged his tormentor's attacks as best he could. He flew in a death dive towards the ocean's waters, but the demon followed. One enormous beat of his wings salt water flying up into King Ghidorah's six eyes as Battra had planned.

With his foe stunned, Mothra's brother came up from behind and landed between his wings where he began to strike with his claws, bite with his mandibles, and gouge with his horn. King Ghidorah struggled on the ocean's surface, his gravity distortion at present barely able to hold them both. He threw water up as he thrashed back and forth, yet Battra tore strip after strip of golden pseudo flesh from the enemy of all life, regardless of the burning acid blood that spurted forth and the Taint that left him ever weaker. Battra would not let his sister's death be for nothing; he would not yield!

Big mistake.

King Ghidorah gathered his energies for a surge of electricity through his skin and the recipient of said attack was Battra. He writhed in agony as miniature lightning raced across him and the pain screamed its way through him. The Star of Doom bucked and cast him off into the sea. Terrified, Battra let himself be thrown and flew away before he hit the water as fast as he could. He was going to die; he knew it! He was going to fail his sister and his people, just as he'd feared... just as he'd feared. Failing them, his worst fear…

He looked to see King Ghidorah laughing his wretched, malevolent cackle. It was the Fear that had made him panic so... Battra's eyes glowed red with anger as he looked at the Bane of Life, his wings beating so hard as if he wanted to break the air. King Ghidorah saw this and realized that Battra had broken through the Fear. Oh well, now he'd have to kill the worm and be done with it. C'est la vie!

Battra had barely begun to charge when a barrage of Crimson Lightning flew from every claw tip of both his enemy's wings with such force that it sent him flying all the way to the shores of Infant Island. The islanders in the caverns deep below had no way of knowing that the sudden crash was caused by their champion falling up above, though they already suspected the worst. Battra was lying groggily on the volcano's slopes. He was on his belly and in pain. He felt his wings shredded by the force of that last hit, if fact, his whole lower left wing had been blasted off. Mothra's dread brother knew that his exoskeleton had to have been shattered in various places because through the cracks, the hot jagged obsidian burned his tender flesh. Every inch was burning and every crack leaked out blood to be set on the black rocks. Then everything grew dark. Fearful, he looked up to what caused the falling shadow.

A golden streak was all Battra saw before the cruelest pain he shot through him like a bullet and sent him, quick as lightning, into utter darkness.

King Ghidorah looked down at the insect from which he had fallen from the sky to crush. He placed his foot from the splattered worm's neck to grind his head into the sand. Battra was dead. While it was true that he could return from the womb of the earth, if his sister Mothra were to also due, then it would mean that then Battra would die forever as well because of their perpetual link. And King Ghidorah knew it.

King Ghidorah looked upwards and screeched his madness, louder and louder but it was cut short by a feral gong like roar from the side. All three heads turned to the side and all six eyes closed with glee as he saw the roar's owner.

It was Godzilla and the battle would at last begin.

Deep in the caves of Infant Island, the native people and the visiting people from G-Force were cowering in fear. The whole island shook as the battle raged above them. Some were crying, others were merely silent in the darkness, as the place shook and dust fell from the stony roof. The old white haired chieftain and the three Elias tried to keep order. The people were hoping that the stone walls would serve as a shelter and that they would survive the horrid day. They were hoping not praying because with their gods, Mothra and Battra dead, how could they?

All were afraid, except one.

Miki Segeusa had been there for Godzilla in every battle and this would be no exception. With a camera, she slipped out of the caverns, weaving past the stalagmites in the shadows, to the surface to see the battle between Godzilla and King Ghidorah for herself. Was she afraid? No, when it came to giant monsters, Miki had ceased to feel any fear for herself long ago. But could she feel fear for others... yes and now for the first time she felt fear for Godzilla

As for Godzilla, he wasn't afraid of anything, especially the demon before him. Fear wasn't the emotion he held. The emotion was utter hatred. And to King Ghidorah's credit, he returned the favor though the rage was mixed with a charmed amusement, and slight respect for his "beloved" foe.

The battle had already decimated the shoreline in every direction; deep gouges were carved into the earth and the fair forests of the island were in flames. The battle had taken its toll on its two combatants. That Miki could see for herself because she had just emerged from the tunnel at the side of the cliff wall. She climbed up the side carefully for a better view. Very carefully because the battle made the island tremble as if it too were afraid. When she finally made her way to the top and setting upon the camera to film the battle, she was stunned.

Godzilla was virtually invincible; he was a living juggernaut whose power was unstoppable. He was some one hundred meters tall! Yet King Ghidorah was one hundred fifty meters and in the mere hours that he had been known to the world he had exhibited more abilities, and of a greater power, than any other monster that the world had ever known. Not even when King Kong himself fought Godzilla back in the eighties had Godzilla ever faced such a foe. As much as she believed in him, she was uncertain that Godzilla could win such a battle.

As for Godzilla, all he was uncertain of was how he would tear King Ghidorah apart!

King Ghidorah lunged forward and dealt a flying tail whip that struck its mark. Godzilla bellowed as he felt the poisoned spines tore through his belly, shredding his flesh and spilling his blood as his foe raked them through. Yet Godzilla wasn't beaten. Unflinching from pain, he tore King Ghidorah's tails from within his belly, gore splattering everywhere as he did so. Then, with strength unbelievable and hands bloody, hurled King Ghidorah up into the air by his tails and brought him crashing down! Again and again he did it, each crash snapping the space demon's tails like twin whips. Though the pain from his wound was tremendous, Godzilla made the whole island shook with the fury until he threw King Ghidorah aside.

Not ceasing his attack for a second, Godzilla's spines glowed red and, quick as lightning, he loosed his Red Spiral Ray against the accursed King of Terror. It knocked him down flat to the round for he was somehow unable to absorb Godzilla's energy. Yet even as Godzilla rushed forward King Ghidorah threw himself of his feet, struck with his heads, and knocked Godzilla back. Even down Godzilla was a threat as he extended his tail and swung around. It struck King Ghidorah's leg with the force of a derailed train and the demon was actually hopping on his other leg. If it were some video game it might have even been comical.

Godzilla took advantage and hoisted his most hated enemy over his head and cast all 77,000 tons forward crashing into a mountain like so much chaff. Dust and rubble flying everywhere, he leapt forward slashing with his claws and biting with his jaws, attacking with everything and holding back nothing. As King Ghidorah's frame was ravaged he writhed in pain and succeeded in casting his spiked club tails unto the nerve bundle, or second brain as some called it, where his tail met the back. It was his one weak spot and Godzilla was momentarily paralyzed by it.

King Ghidorah saw this and vaulted back into the skies swooping down to grasp his foe with his talons like a hawk with a rabbit. At the other side of the burning valley, Miki watched in horror as she saw King Ghidorah take Godzilla flying up and bring him crashing down unto the ground making the very earth shake. Bruised and broken, Godzilla did not move. Gloating for his victory, the Star of Doom stood in silence before casting a volley of fireballs unto his foe's prostate form. More and more he fired on his hated foe as he smelled the sweet stench of burning flesh.

Miki could only watch as her friend was tortured by the demon fell and foul.

King Ghidorah looked over Godzilla. Flames were still licking over his bruised body. How many bones were broken, King Ghidorah couldn't tell. Though he could tell how much of Godzilla's blood was splattered over the two of them. The Bane of Life had won and why should he not? Was it not he that held custody over the greatest power among all who were alive?

Like a golden mountain that could walk, King Ghidorah haughtily turned away. Megalomaniacal pride would prove the undoing of one dragon that fell from heaven, and it would prove the undoing for another. Summoning all his remaining strength, the saurian titan surged forward (with Miki cheering in the distance) and grabbed all King Ghidorah's three necks in a vise like choke hold. Though King Ghidorah of course had no need to breath, such a situation was intolerable. He struggled and for his efforts his right wing was broken in half by Godzilla's fearsome jaws. Then, with a sickening crunch, snapped King Ghidorah's right neck.

With a tremendous effort, the Star of Doom broke free of the bear hug and leapt into the sky where both he and Godzilla glared at each other.

For King Ghidorah, this was intolerable! A sick fury rose up from him and a seething rage all but drove him mad. His healing power would mend the damage soon enough, but with his right neck broken, he wouldn't be able to battle. He needed three brains to control his many attacks and with one disconnected they would not be coming.

As for Godzilla, he was full with a burning, evil hatred equal to King Ghidorah's own. But with both bruised eyes bleeding, there was no way the exhausted Godzilla could hope to strike his foe with his ray, even if he had the energy to do so. He knew from his hearing that King Ghidorah was near but not where. Nor did he know how long it would be before he sufficiently recharged his strength to fight again. With such wounds and broken bones, it would be a long time.

Screaming his fury and seething vows of hate, King Ghidorah slowly and clumsily flew off over the sea with broken wings, swearing he would finish what he began and have Godzilla fail as he did before on that day 65,000,000 years ago. Or so it was that the Elias later told Miki that they understood.

As for Godzilla, though every step was agony and his shredded belly burned with every breath, he hobbled on broken legs towards the sea. Even if it were to take another 65,000,000 years, he would make the demon pay.

As for Miki, she looked with fear at the golden comet streaking away into the sun and with worry at the saurian that began to sink beneath the waves. She was shaking. Miki then remembered how after she had left her father's house on Odo and went to live with her grandfather, he had had her study in one of Tokyo's many parochial schools. Many people, even non-Christians, sent their children to such schools for the commitment to education found there. One of little Miki's favorite subjects had been religion for the sake of a passage in the Book of Job.

The Book of Job spoke of a sea monster that Almighty God had named Leviathan. It was a sea monster without equal and without rival, against whose might the force of men was worthless, upon whose back were spines like a row of shields, from whose mouth fire came forth, and who when raise up caused the mighty to be afraid. If such a passage did not describe Godzilla, then Miki didn't know what did. Yet there was one difference. Against Leviathan "though the sword should reach him, it will not prevail." And yet against Godzilla "the sword," had all but won.

Miki trembled and fell to her knees. For the first time since her childhood, she prayed to the Christian God, telling Him that if He was all powerful to use that power now. She knelt on the mountain top and looked at the King of the Monsters swim away into the a sea made gold by the setting sun.

Chapter Twelve

"Oh no," gasped Commander Fuji. He looked out of the cockpit of the P-1X towards the ravaged, mutilated body of Mothra as it floated in the inky blackness of space. General Rhodes had sent Fuji and a team of astronauts towards what had been the site of the battle to see if there were any survivors and if there was anything that could be done. Fuji had been prepping the P-1X in case this were to happened and he had even seen the Space Demon as it flew over the base, but he was in no ways prepared him for what he saw.

Mothra was not the only one in agony; that was a fact. The meteor that had served as King Ghidorah's prison was a dust cloud and the ships that had been sent earlier, the NASA shuttle and the WSA's Moonlight SY3, were made shrapnel. Mothra had stood against Godzilla himself in times past and Moonlight SY3 had been made to be the ultimate weapon Earth could muster and yet they had beaten as if they were nothing. What kind of creature could do such damage? Fuji was deathly afraid and it wasn't residual Fear that made him feel that way.

He felt despair. Despite having been trained to be ready for death as part of the job, Fuji felt his heart break on seeing all this. Was there any hope that anyone was still alive?

After taking a deep breath he looked away from his controls and to his communications officer across the cockpit from him. "Contact moonbase. Tell them that we found Mothra and she might still be alive. Tell them to get a space tug to help us bring her back and to bring in kaijuologists to moon base if we're going to get her healed up. We're going to need everything we can get to fight Ghidorah.

"When you're done with that, check all frequencies. Anything, however small, and I want you to tell me about it. Saving those men is why we're here."

The communications man nodded. "Yes, sir." He turned to make the report when he heard it. He checked his station's equipment to make sure he wasn't imagining it before reporting it. "Sir, we're going to have to wait on Mothra's doctors. We're being hailed!"

"Are you sure?"

"Sir, yes, sir."

"Alright," said Commander Fuji. "Put it on speakers."

The desperate voice came in loud over the speakers. "Hello? Is anyone there? This is Glen of the NASA requesting immediate assistance."

"This is Commander Fuji of the WSA ship P-1X. We've been sent to find survivors and render them assistance."

"What?!" came Glen's yell over the speakers. "Are you there!? If you are then whoever you are, you're my new best friend! Have you really come!?"

"Yes, the P-1X has been sent on a search-and-rescue mission for your crew and the crew of the Moonlight SY3. Are there any survivors of your crew? Is Captain Yamabe still alive?"

There was a silence on the P-1X's speakers before it was broken. "No... The nuclear blast sent is reeling but we got away in time. We saw the battle. Moonlight SY3 was completely destroyed, all hands lost. I'm sorry"

There was a sadness in Commander Fuji; on a base as small as the lunar colony, you and your teammates become family. It was only after a time that he said, "Just give me your coordinates and my team and I will come for you."

/o0o\

It was sunset on Infant Island and the men and women of G-Force were going home. A ship had been sent to take them back to Japan. It was a grim and bitter experience. All their work on Project Telepathy had been a waste and to add to that misery was the presence of a yet another monster to deal with. This time, however, with all they had been told of King Ghidorah, they were not sure if they could deal with this monster so easily.

Angry and pessimistic, they all went to be taken away. All except Miki Segeusa, of course. She was standing at the shoreline looking to where the sun kissed the water. The soft light made her dress even more beautiful. That was when Kyle saw her. He saw her shoeless with her feet washed by the surf. He saw that she was sad; he didn't have to be a psychic to sense that. Reaching once again into his pocket to feel the ring, he went up to her.

"Miki?" he asked. "Miki, are you alright?"

Broken from whatever thoughts in which she had been absorbed, she looked to whoever had called her name. "What? Oh, its you Kyle."

"Are you alright? I've been looking everywhere for you."

Miki smiled. "Really you were looking for me?"

Kyle nodded. "You bet I was. My grandfather said I might find you here. Y'know, I was in the cave with you and the next thing I notice is that you're off to see the fight. What you did was very brave."

"Thank you," she said. "I'm glad that you're here. I was getting kinda worried too."

Kyle held the engagement ring in his closed hand. She was worried about him. He knew that their life together wouldn't be an easy one, but that somehow they could make it work.

Miki brushed her hair to one side and once again a frightened look came across her face. "Ever since his fight with King Ghidorah, Godzilla's life signs have been very weak."

He was the one she was worried about ?! Growling, he shoved the ring back into his pocket and looked at Miki with an angry expression. "Him again!? Miki, why don't you think of something else for once... like love." He looked more kindly at her now and a soft edge returned to his voice. "Life would be sad without love."

She spun around to face him angrily. "Yeah?! Not as sad as fighting all the time!" On the verge of tears she said with a choked voice "Can't you see? He also has feelings! Feelings the same as we do!"

/o0o\

All over the globe, people were still reeling at what they had seen. Despite the attempted blackout, it was very obvious that King Ghidorah had come to Earth with one sole purpose: destroy Earth and kill every living thing on it. Everything. G-Force Alpha's Commander Aso had already alerted his forces and had told his fellow commanders of the Defense Force of Earth to do so as well.

Aso still didn't know how powerful King Ghidorah was, but, judging from the pictures of Lima beamed down from what few satellites were left, he knew it was too powerful. Preparing for the worst, he had ordered 24 hour shifts on MOGUERA and other G-Force super weapons for deployment against the demon as soon as possible. One of said super weapons was the experimental super plane Gryphon, which was at that very moment being assembled in the main hanger of G-Force Europe's German base.

When G-Force was organized in the late eighties, it was subdivided into lesser G-Forces according to the continents. Because of Europe's post World War II drive for unification, G-Force Europe had been organized the fastest and was easily the most efficient and well administrated kaiju response organization, after Aso's G-Force Alpha of course. Because of its being in the center of Europe and already having a kaiju guardian, Frankenstein, Germany was G-Force Europe's obvious head quarters. Also, as Europe's economic powerhouse, Germany was often the nation that financed G-Force Europe's super weapons. It had spear headed the then European Economic Community's building of Cyber-Saur, though it was ultimately given to G-Force Australia/South Pacific.

Otto Ludendorf, the foreman in charge of the Gryphon was at that moment taking a break. Like his workers, and nearly everyone else on base, he was crowded into the German beer hall style rec room watching the TV screen. In total and frightened silence, they watched Connie Matsu of United World Television News' Godzilla Watch Network on the scene at Lima. Otto heard that the capital was completely destroyed and, with the deaths of the majority of the leaders of government, Peru's infrastructure was in shambles. Otto's mug of beer lay untouched and that alone was enough to worry his workers. At Oktoberfest, he had happily drunk a whole gallon of beer in one sitting. Now all he could do was whisper "Mein Gott..."

Otto knew it was time call everyone back to work and off they silently went. If King Ghidorah could destroy an entire city in five minutes-five minutes!-what hope did they have of beating it? It was perhaps because of that that Dr. Yoshino Yoshizawa-chief designer of G-Force weapons and equipment, she was there to personally supervise the Gryphon's construction-gave a speech telling them to not lose hope and that the world was counting on them in how they would build the Gryphon.

It was a small comfort, though Otto did find the idea of Germans and Japanese working together again amusing. However, he did feel some weight lifted from his shoulders when he saw Frankenstein, all twenty five meters of him, slowly walk in carrying the Gryphon with the help of Uchihikrah.

Frankenstein's story began in World War II. Nazi Germany had claimed the heart of the "Frankenstein monster." The true origin of the heart was shrouded in mystery; regardless, German scientists tried to examine the disembodied beating organ in a bid to make its soldiers invincible. It was towards the end of the war when it became increasingly clear that the cause was lost that the the Germans sent the heart to their Japanese partners to keep it from falling into Allied hands. However, the lab the heart was sent to for examination was in, of all places, Hiroshima.

The radiation from the bomb caused the heart to grow a new body and become a giant monster, or kaiju. The humanoid Frankenstein grew very hairy and ugly and with a flat topped head, but was more a giant than a monster. He proved peaceful but was almost killed when, for apparently no reason at all, he was nearly drowned by an oodako octopus. Eventually, Frankenstein washed up, barely alive, on US held Okinawan shores. The East Germans asked for the return of what they claimed belonged to them, namely Frankenstein. However, the US government rightly guessed that it was that Soviet Union talking and instead; by the advice of doctors James Bowen, Sueko Togami, and Kenichiro Kawai-who were still the chief Frankenstein researchers-; sent the monster to West Germany. As if by some racial memory, Frankenstein instinctively felt a desire to protect the land of Germany and its people.

As for Uchihikrah his story was more complicated. Once a man named Mikhail Gagarin in the tiny Russian village of Klushio in 1934, he lived a happy life and pulled himself up by his bootstraps to become a pilot in the Soviet Air Force. He rose to world wide fame for his daring command of Airship Beta II in the fight against the Mysterians in 1957. However, in his assault on the Mysterian Dome, he and he alone contracted a strange space virus.

The symptoms of the dormant virus were not at first present and for years Gagarin went about his daily routine with his wife, Valentina, and his daughter, Lenoehika. The first sign that something was wrong was when, in 1968, he survived a plane crash that should have been fatal. However, he did survive and went on to make the WSA's joint US/USSR moon landing where he planted the UN flag with his American counterpart. It was to be his last and greatest glory because soon after the exposure to space, the virus awoke and began to turn Gagarin into the monster Uchihikrah.

When he saw that and fled into the countryside where nobody could see what he had become, none except his daughter, Lenoehika, followed him. (Nobody except the Red Army, however.) Many people found it difficult to believe that one of the Soviet Unions greatest heroes was now a twenty five meter tall kaiju with greenish black skin, gangly gorilla arms limbs, no head, his face in his barrel chest, and with nothing but two red eyes and a tiny mouth to make that face. Lenoehika didn't care, however; she knew her father was still in there!

She begged the assembled Red Army to spare his life and it ultimately did so. On seeing that while Gagarin's body had changed his mind had not, nor his loyalty to the USSR, the Soviets made him Russia's official kaiju. Propaganda value aside, he served Mother Russia well as a guardian monster. Because of Uchihikrah vigilance, Russia was largely free of monster attacks. However, part of the credit went to Dr Lenoehika Gagarin, his now slightly gray haired human daughter and Russia's chief kaijuologist. They two were still very close. They had to be; there was nobody else for them. Uchihikrah's, or Gagarin's, human family had long ago rejected him as a freak; Lenoehika was similarly ostracized.

As for Uchihikrah of the former USSR and Frankenstein of former West Germany, they knew each other very well. During the Cold War, with one kaiju on each side of the Iron Curtain, they were taught by their respective governments to hate each other. While Uchihikrah was not so easily swayed because of his human level intelligence, he was all too easily reminded of the Nazis that stole his family's home when he was a child when he looked at Frankenstein whose story began with them. However with the end of the Cold War they settled their differences and even aided each other in their protectorates when one could not win the battle by himself.

Now they were helping to assemble the Gryphon. As large as the plane was it would normally have taken a good half hour to move it into place with the usual heavy machinery but with these two giants applying their strength, it was moved into place for construction in minutes.

Dr. Yoshino Yoshizawa saw where they had left it and she turned to her fellow scientist. "Miss Gagarin could you tell Uchihikrah to move the Gryphon slightly to the right? I want maximum efficiency."

"Da." The grey haired woman relayed the command and the kaiju tipped his blackish green body forward and then back. Without a head to nod with, this was his way of saying yes. He then slipped his long three fingered hands and his strange gangly arms under the Gryphon and lifted its entire weight. He shut his two red eyes in exertion and he moved the nose of the plane to the right. He turned around to saw Frankenstein moving steel girders and the like needed for construction under the guidance of his human keepers. Uchihikrah saw he wasn't needed; he turned away.

Lenoehika Gagarin saw this and followed him out of the hanger. "Father, father where are you?" She saw him walking past the airfields and the buildings, earning frightened stares from the human soldiers there, past the concrete structures and onto a small grassy hill where he sat all his twenty-meter tall body down. When Lenohika finally caught up with him, she was panting for breath. Leaning with her hand against his titanic body, she said between gasps "So there you are. Why'd you leave all of a sudden?"

She looked at his chest and saw a despairing look in his red blank eyes. "Is it because of King Ghidorah?" The kaiju did his pseudo nod. "Uchihikrah... father, there wasn't anything that you could've done. Even if you were right there, King Ghidorah would have killed you in an instant. I heard it even stood against Godzilla himself."

Uchihikrah shoulders slumped. For years he had guarded his people as a kaiju. Knowing he was doing good was the only way for him alleviate some of the misery of his curse. Before that, when he was human, he had guarded his people as a soldier in the Russian military. It would have been better that he die than all those innocent people. He knew that nobody, least of all himself, would miss a freak.

His daughter struck his leathery hide in order to get her father's attention. "Nonsense. If you were to have died there I would have missed you." Lenoehika held one of Uchihikrah's mammoth fingers as if she were holding his hand. "With everyone else gone, you're the only person I have left."

At that, Uchihikrah ran his other hand across his gray haired daughter's face. She looked up to see his sad red eyes shedding tears. Lenohika then went and hugged him as best she could. She smiled and said "Oh father..."

Epilogue

Deep in UNGCC's world headquarters, world leaders, kaijuologists, and military men had come together to face the common foe. Usually, the conference room just a few dozen people. Now there were near a hundred sitting around a huge circular table O-shaped table and there were all there for one purpose: find a way to defeat King Ghidorah.

Among them were Miki Segeusa. Ever since she had shown her power with Godzilla, she had always been a part of these meetings, this one especially because of how she had seen King Ghidorah with her own eyes. She was UNGCC's greatest asset. Not that her on-again off-again boy friend Kyle Martin, a leading kaijuologist, was something to sneeze at.

Miki looked around and saw Director Goodhue, former US Army general who had helped to coordinate the joint US, Soviet, Japanese attack on Godzilla in 1985 and who had saved Tokyo from nuclear annihilation in that same battle. At his right was Doctor Hayashida, the world's leading kaijuologist who had lost his parents to the beast more than forty years ago and who, in the same 1985 attack, had used the sonic lure to send Godzilla to the prison of Mt Mihara. At Goodhue's left was the ever-grim Commander Aso, supreme commander of G-Force and ready to fight whatever kaiju that showed itself. And on his left were his lieutenants, the sub commanders of the lesser G-Forces.

There was Commander Raschell of G-Force North America, an old friend to Goodhue and who had at last managed to, if not defeat, at least contain Inagos and his Swarm. There was Commander Hess of G-Force Europe where the Gryphon was under construction. There was Commander Ahmed of G-Force Africa who led the fight against the snake monster Apophis. There was Commander Espinoza of G-Force South America who felt guilty for not having been able to do more for ruined Lima. There was Commander Kuroki of G-Force Asia, Aso's right hand man. There was Commander Cowen of G-Force Australia/South Pacific who kept his domain safe with the robot called Cyber-Saur.

There were also the Commanders of the Defense Force of the Earth; Aerial, Land, and Maritime. It was the global equivalent of America's Chiefs of Staff. In addition to Aso's fellow DFE commanders, there were the future pilots of MOGUERA. Their commander Tomas Santos, Secretary General Miguel Santos' son, had also served as secondary pilot of Angela, G-Force's first mecha. There was also General Melissa Rhodes of Moonbase along with witnesses of the first failed assault on King Ghidorah such as Astronaut Glen. The representatives of many of the world's armed forces were there.

There were also several world leaders present. Princess Selena Salno of Selginia was there to lend whatever advice she could as was her Prime Minister, Tenzin Yetrigar. A velvet box before them held the three Elias; Moll, Lora, and Belvera. America's President was there despite the uniform loathing for him felt by all those present; he was extremely nervous. His country having faced many monsters, the Prime Minister of Japan was ready to give his council. There were even representatives of the Mu Empire, though dressed in western business suits. They had said that they were especially eager to help against King Ghidorah. Heading them all was the Secretary General of the United Nations, Miguel Santos.

Secretary General Santos rose up from his seat at the head of the round table. He grimly looked towards his fellow world leaders sitting in their seats surrounding him before addressing them as if this were a miniature General Assembly. He adjusted his tie and said, "As you all know the monster that has just recently arrived is called King Ghidorah. Our few remaining satellites have shown that following his battle with Godzilla, King Ghidorah has gone into space in an attempt to absorb the solar energy he needs to recover and attack again.

"This gives us some time, however slight, to plot a course of action. I have already spoken with Princess Salno concerning the meteor and the Elias. Mu's representatives have said that they too have information on the monster. All three have agreed to say what they know. Please give them your full attention."

He sat down and let Salno rise. She walked to the center of the O-shaped round table to address the delegates surrounding her on all sides and placed a velvet box holding the Elias on a small pedestal. "Thank you Mr. Secretary." She looked over the people in the conference room with her and saw the looks on their faces. "Dear sirs, I assume that you might be asking how I could have known about the monster. " A sardonic grin spread across her face. "The lynch mob that tried to storm my hotel room wondered the same thing.

"Regardless of all that, however, regardless of personal feelings concerning responsibility for opening the meteor, we must work together for the common goal of defeating the space demon." There was a bitter tone in Salno's voice as she said that. On hearing this everyone at the conference table, as if on cue, turned towards America's President at which he slumped down in his chair.

She paused before continuing. When she finally did there was a far away tone in her voice. "This universe is older than any of you know. The Age of Monsters didn't begin when Godzilla 'first' arose in the 1950s; it all goes back much farther. With the Elias's help I will tell you how much farther back it goes. It goes back at least 65,000,000 years, possibly more, with the original inhabitants of Nebula M Space Hunter, or Nebulans."

Nobody noticed that America's President jerked to attention on hearing that.

"According to interstellar lore, their's was the very first planet to have ever been civilized. With their power, they created a civilization beyond knowledge, beyond reckoning. Their power was the likes that they lived like gods, but the power of gods in the hands of mortals is always a dangerous mixture. They saw other newly developing worlds and saw that they could be subjugated. It was not for land or wealth that these planets were sought out, there are countless uninhabited worlds in the universe to be colonized, but it was for the sake of power, domination, and will.

"But with what would they fight? It was then that the idea of creating living war machines was devised. These space monsters were called… skyllans." She spat the word out as if it were poison. "…And they were savage brutes indeed." She nodded at the Elias. They nodded back and levitated the Shield of Elias between the three of them and touched it with their swords so that the images of strange and hideous monsters would appear. In a swirl of sparkles shimmering pictures swirled in midair above everyone's head.

One monster looked like a walking pile of black sludge and dripped tar with every step; it looked sinesterly out of two two bloated red eyes. Another was an even stranger looking thing. It had hooks for hands, a buzz saw in its belly, a red visor for an eye, and spikes on its head to compliment its beak and mandibles. There were more: a jellyfish like creature; a small headed gray hunched over thing whose arms nearly dragged on the ground; a bald, red skinned beast with the wings of a bat, the body of a puma and a tongue made of snakes. There was a flame red bat monster with a long tail and rows of spines on his back. "Hedorahs, Gigans, Yogs, Orgas Gryphons, Bagorahs; they and their spawn are skyllan all. With these abominations, the Nebulans rose like a living flame across the galaxy. They planted their banners over the soil of a thousand worlds.

"And yet even such power was not enough for them." The Elias continued to use their powers to make the words that Salno spoke pictures that danced above all their heads so that Earth's leaders could see for themselves what they faced. "The Nebulans wanted to create the ultimate skyllan. Legend says they made a pact with Satan to obtain the Prince of Skyllans. Whether by maddest science or blackest magic, those genocidal would-be world conquerors spawned a monstrosity of the vilest darkness. On those worlds where many gods are known, King Ghidorah is feared as the god of evil. On worlds where one god is worshiped, they say King Ghidorah is the devil himself.

"But before all this began, once the demon had just been made, the Nebulans went and sought out a small, forgotten, uninhabited planet on which to test their newest monstrosity and they found it on the planet Earth some 65,000,000 years ago. After speaking with the Elias, I can now authoritatively say what had happened next and it wasn't a meteor that killed the dinosaurs."

A hush came across the room and Secretary General Santos tersely remarked, "You mean to say that he can destroy all life on Earth."

"He can and nearly would have if not for the guardian monsters that stood against him," Salno said. "The Supersaur champions that were forged were these." The image of a noble four legged tan colored ankylosaur like creature materialized. It had a carapace of spines on its back and a spray of horns on the end of his long head. They all heard it give a loud barking honk. "There was Anguirus... " They then saw another quadruped, though of a far less noble heart. Its reddish brown mottled hide was topped by a turtle like shell. Adorning its dog like face was a yellow horn and elephant like ears. "There was Baragon..." Then there was an image of a male theropod dinosaur and a female plesiosaur both ambling along the beach's edge until they approached one another and merged into a tall brightly colored warty skinned biped with a long neck topped by a frilled eel like head. "There was Titannosaurus..." After that disappeared they saw a rather ordinary looking theropod dinosaur that resembled his saurian namesake. "There was Gorosaurus..." It was replaced by a familiar brown skinned spine bellied pteranodon that was, then as its descendants were now, the terror of the skies. "There was Rodan... " That image transformed into one of Godzilla like female creature. She was green skinned with long purple spines; she was bent forward and balanced by her outstretched tail. "There was Gigantis... And the last was Godzilla. He hardly needs introduction."

The last image of the last kaijusaur faded from the air and the Elias continued to use their magic to illustrate Salno's story. "It was for that purpose that they were born. They all fought as hard as they could and none fought as hard as Godzilla who was determined destroy Ghidorah for the death of his mate, Gigantis, and his best friend, Anguirus. Yet despite the kaijusaurs best efforts, Ghidorah succeeded in nearly killing the entire Earth. What little was left was destroyed when his Nebulan masters sent an asteroid crashing into it. The Nebulans were impressed by their creation. They were so certain that he would lead then on the road of conquest. They were so certain he would be their ultimate weapon.

"Fools. With the one single exception of Cretaceous Earth, their planet was the very first he destroyed. On the day their world died they learned why they were right to name their creation kingu gidora, the devil's hammer. They tried to activate the self destruct weapon they placed in all their skyllans but it was no good. King Ghidorah just laughed and turned his birth world to a graveyard."

The people there gasped and murmured as they saw the Elias make Salno's words into images for them to see the carnage for themselves. There were images of global firestorms and ruined cities, of corpses piled on top of each other and of all the land made a wasteland and of all the sea made a dead sea. "Despite this destruction, it should be said that some life did survive in the form of intelligent man sized insects."

On hearing that, America's President yelled, "What!?"

Salno was visibly annoyed. "You heard me. Now please let me continue."

Emmerich was visibly trembling, but why? Regardless of that, he let Salno continue. "With their overlords dead, the countless peoples that the Nebulans had enslaved those millions of years ago reveled in their freedom. It was to be a false joy. Soon enough, the skyllans, with their masters dead, attacked. Without the Nebulans to keep then in check, they ceased to be weapons of conquest and became weapons of chaos and, to this day presumably, wander across the stars bringing misery to every planet they find.

"And yet, the worst of them, by far, was and still is King Ghidorah. He has outlasted all his 'brothers' to become the most dreaded name in the cosmos. With 65,000,000 years worth of blood on his hands; he is feared and hated as the King of Terror, the Prince of Skyllans, the Star of Doom, the Bane of Life, the Planet Killer, the Scourge of the Galaxy. He would burn entire planets to ash so that he might drink in all the torment and humiliation he wrought upon them for his perverse pleasure. He Taints the land, the sea, and the air, all it touches, so that all that lives may wither up and die. He was indeed the devil's hammer for he lives only to bring forth hell on earth.

"As for Earth, it survived the death of the dinosaurs although it was a hundred years before a single green shoot graced the world again. The Age of the Dinosaurs was ended and that of Man began. We huddled in our caves though in time, we reached for much more. Before this meeting, I spoke with the Muvian ambassador and, as you all know, the Muvian civilization is an ancient one with recorded history going back over 10,000 years old and with spoken tradition going back even further. Combining our records I can say what happened in the days of Atlantis and Lemuria and the other Antediluvian civilizations, before the Great Flood.

"Ruling the Atlantic and Europe, there was Atlantis, the most beautiful of the Ancient lands where marble pillars graced the skies and science ruled. Its champion was Kamoebas." An image of an ugly turtle with an irregularly angled shell appeared before high marble towers.

"There was N'Lai K'Nai, a land of the seas, where advanced science and high sorcery lived side by side and where all was ruled by a Princess said to be descended of a sun goddess. It was situated in modern Japan and ruled much of Asia. Its 'champion' was Dagarla." An image materialized of a cruel and hideous four legged and winged beast that waddled before the great temple of N'Lai K'Nai.

"There was Shamis Ra in the Indian Ocea. Ruling Africa, it was a land of the skull ruled by warrior kings and fierce sorcerers. It was a land that time forgot with creatures from every epoch of earth's history. Its champion was Kong." An image appeared of a rain forest where pterodactyls flew and where the familiar face of the ape King Kong, previously the only monster strong enough to challenge Godzilla, beat his chest and roar before his worshippers.

"There was Seatopia, a land of peace and promise ruled by philosophers whose ways would inspire the customs of Greece and Rome, the creators of western civilization. It stretched from Australia to South America and left its mark on places such as Easter Island. Their champion was Megalon." The image of Greek like toga clad people standing before Roman style buildings and Easter Island heads appeared. With them was a beetle like thing with four limbs only, a human stance, a mottled carapace, drills for hands, and a large head adorned with a horn topped by a star crest. It clashed its drill hands together whirled them independently.

The people were so entranced that they did not hear President Emmerich gasp when he heard the name Seatopia.

"And there was Mu, great and glorious Mu, a land of knowledge and wisdom in the Pacific that commanded the whole sea from the surface to the blackest abyss. Friend of N'Lai K'Nai, it was ruled by a wise emperor and guarded by the noble Manda."

The Elias used their shield to make the image of the land but Belvera, hoping to lighten the mood, forced her will against her sisters and projected the image of a rather comic looking Godzilla flying backwards as he chased a saucer shaped Hedorah through the air by using his fire breath as propulsion, bizarre music playing all the while.

Everyone saw this and was shocked. They looked to see Lora punching Belvera's shoulder. "Belvera, stop it! This is serious!"

Rubbing her shoulder, Belvera said "Yeah, yeah..."

Quite ashamed, Moll looked up to Princess Salno. "I'm terribly sorry. I don't know what came over her, sir."

Restraining herself, he said "It's alright m'lady, just continue in good order." Then she glared at Belvera. "And that means you!"

Belvera just smirked. "Whatever you say princess."

"Very well," said the the Princess. "As I was saying there was Mu." He looked to Belvera who, to her credit, helped her sisters make the proper image of Mu in the form of a vast and beautiful island as big as Australia rising from the oceans; at the coast was a sweet and fair city. It was a city around that swam the noble dragon like Manda through the seas, his beautiful whiskers and antler like horns encrusted with salt.

"And yet, the eldest and fairest of these lands was Lemuria, a sweet land of light and love. Even Mu was young when they were already old. Quite possibly the very eldest of all Earth's civilizations, Lemuria had begun in the times of the dinosaurs themselves as a few scattered bands of Elias who would one day be called fairies and faye, whose mystical fairy land was beyond the sight of mortal eyes. Mothra and Battra protected them and it was they who gathered the first Guardians to battle King Ghidorah and it would be they that gathered a new set of Guardians to battle King Ghidorah once again."

The Elias once again formed an image with their magic but instead of a happy one that might be expected with the chance to see their heritage, it was a sad and poor one of a weak Mothra and a tiny Battra. Not surprising considering what all three had suffered with loss of their moths.

"I gave your governments copies of all this, everything I know and that I have been able to get from the Muvians." The Mu ambassador nodded at that. "Comparing the notes we have made, I can say what happens next

"At the height of their power the Antediluvians had intrasolar space travel and set up colonies across the Solar System. We-er, they terraformed Mars and Venus, colonized some of the larger planetoids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, some of the larger moons of the Jovian planets by utilizing similar radiation and pressure-resistant domes and also possibly on some of the distant trans-Plutonian planetary bodies in the Kuiper Belt, such as the small red planet of Sedna."

Tears then began running down Princess Salno's face. It was as if she could remember the events he described next... "They had terraformed Mars and had long since left their protective domes. It was a world of blue rivers and green forests now and only Earth could boast more life than the once Red Planet.

"We thought it was just shooting stars when the night sky was lit up. It wasn't. When King Ghidorah arrived to finish what he began sixty five million years before, the Antediluvians were completely unprepared. The Planet Killer attacked the Martian colonists mercilessly and all of our strongest weaponry proved unable to repel the powerful star creature. It was only one small pitiful remnant that managed to escape back to Earth, as King Ghidorah ruthlessly destroyed what was left of their civilization. They warned the people and the people made ready their champions. The Elias confirmed the Martians' stories, as did the priests of Mu.

"They Guardians stood ready; Lemuria with Mothra and Battra, Shamirs Ra with Kong, Seatopia with Megalon, Atlantis with Kamoebas, N'Lai K'Nai with Dagarla, and Mu with Tiamat. Yes Tiamat, not Manda. She was the first goddess of Mu and a daughter of the fabled Great Dragon who, according to legend, sired the first dragons before the Age of Men-dinosaurs. The mighty draca knew from her father's stories of King Ghidorah, that he had slain the saurian race and was determined not to let the Prince of Skyllans win, not this time.

She spared a glance to the Muvian ambassador. His ashen face was set as stone and he could not bring himself to look at her. "She elected to fight him alone; the first dragons, her brothers, were her's to avenge. It was above the skies of Mars that the battle was waged. The she dragon struck with her mighty wings and blasted her fiery breath at the monster. A, that he had slain the saurian race and we were determined not to let the Prince of Skyllans win, not this time. She was the daughter of the Great Dragon and wielded his fire; she very well could have won but it was not to be.

"She dealt him a terrible blow and it was years before he was strong enough to attack again but Ghidorah won that battle and left her corpse to further redden the sands of Mars.

"When King Ghidorah finally made landfall, we were ready and seven champions stood against him. Manda had taken his mother's place and led the charge against the beast. The fight was a horrendous one where Dagarla, Kamoebas, Mothra, and Battra were killed. But for however terrible it was, we did win; we did survive. In the end, Kong, mightiest of all the monsters of the Ancients after Tiamat, dealt King Ghidorah the final blow and claimed victory. They learned, however, that the demon is seemingly immortal; maybe he really was made by the devil..." remarked Salno. "The Ancients all lacked the power to destroy King Ghidorah out right and thus end his threat forever, so they instead imprisoned him in a sphere made of the finest Atlantean orihalcym so that he might be locked away until the end of time."

And with that, the Elias lowered their three swords and the vision disappeared. Santos shook his head at all he had seen. If I live to be a hundred years old I won't forget that. He looked around the conference room and saw were some dumbfounded, some were trembling, some were trembling. Why shouldn't they be in shock? It was all just... so unbelievable. He had reviewed the information given him before and it checked it so far but... "She spoke of Mu," said Secretary General Santos quietly. "Mr. Ambassador, can you confirm her story?"

The Muvian nodded. "I swear by Manda that it is true. We had always had legends of a space monster that slew our god's holy mother but it was so long ago that all the original records were lost, not that many survived the Cataclysm. In recent times with the destruction of the capital city by the Atragon in 1963 and our opening up to the surface world since," a sour look came across the man's face, " many of our younger generation dismissed the legends as so many fairy tales. What information we had didn't specify Ghidorah but Salno's story so perfectly coincides that it has to be true."

Santos then narrowed his eyes and looked at the Princess. "I brought you along to speak with Emmerich over there but I never thought that a giant monster actually would be inside the sphere. How is it that you know all this?"

A hollow look came across Salno's eyes as she spoke. "Do you remember how I said Antediluvians had colonized the solar system? How Mars was the first world Ghidorah killed? Its worth saying that the eugenics programs would-be colonists underwent to survive the rigors of colonization endowed them with unusual powers. The Mu ambassador here can say similar things about his people living underwater." Indeed, the man lit a cigarette with his index finger. "In the Martians' case, it was the power of telepathy. They developed their psychic faculties quite well; they even made it so that they could pass on memories. Every generation could see with their own eyes what their forefathers saw.

"Mars was the first planet in our solar system that Ghidorah destroyed 10,000 years ago. On the day Mars died, only one small pitiful remnant managed to escape back to Earth, as King Ghidorah ruthlessly destroyed what was left of their civilization. The colonists arrived on Earth and settled in what it today the Tibetan plateau. They did not forget what had happened and implanted a racial memory in their bloodlines so that if King Ghidorah ever returned, that one of their descendants, would see the visions and dream the dreams and warn the world. By the early 20th century, those descendants had formed the nation of Saligna and the bearer of that bloodline is me.

Everyone in the conference room looked at Salno and the Mu Ambassador with unbelieving faces. Commander Aso had a contemptuous look on his face. "Really, is that so?"

Miki frowned at her commander's tone of voice. Having experienced it all in her mind she knew it was all too true. "It might be strange to believe, sir, but I've mindlinked withe the Elias and can vouch for everything Salno said. I mean, its not like Godzilla is normal himself."

Director Goodhue nodded. "Saegeusa's right and besides, we don't have time to debate origins; we have to find some way to beat that Ghidorah thing. What are the options?"

Aso inwardly growled at his superior's words. A Defense Minister's only job should be paying the General's bills. "Very well, sir. We at G-Force have been engineering a new mecha, the MOGUERA, and its designed after its Mysterian namesake. It was designed for Godzilla but with a few modifications it can be used against King Ghidorah. Lieutenant Thomas Santos will be the chief pilot and I've already ordered 24 hour shifts so that it might be finished as soon as possible.

"Also, Commander Richard Cowen volunteered the use of Cyber-Saur and Commander Raschell has agreed to rebuild Red Ronin. Super-X III is ready. The Gryphon is under construction."

Secretary Santos looked thoughtfully at the general. "Good. Will all of Gryphon's… 'special' weapons be functional in time?"

Aso nodded.

Ever on the angle of kaiju, Hayashida asked the Elias, "Would it be possible to seek out the Guardian Monsters? If found, would and could they fight?"

Moll shook her head. "You must forgive us for what you ask is not possible. As for the first Guardians, the kaijusaurs, none can be counted on to stand by our side. The Rodans who've survived into modern times would not fight King Ghidorah unless they were under direct assault. Baragon was killed by Frankenstein. Gigantis is dead. Anguirus is dead. Gorosaurus Titannosaurus are unaccounted for and even if they were found, it is beyond our power to awaken them before their time.

"As for the second Guardians... You saw what happened to Mothra and Battra!" Lora exclaimed. "They have... have already tried to fight King Ghidorah with fatal results. Battra is dead and we're not sure if Mothra will survive... Kamoebas and Dagarlah was killed is the first fight. Seatopia just vanished in the Cataclysm and Megalon with it. We can look for it but its no guarantee. The only two that can fight are Kong and Manda."

Belvera snorted. "Big monkey's alive and as strong as ever; 'proved it with the big fight against Godzilla. When we heard Salno's visions we tried to recruit Kong but the knuckle dragger said 'screw you'! Short of Ghidorah directly attacking Skull Island the rest of us can up and die all he cares. And as for Manda..."

"What about Manda?" Commander Aso cut in. He turned to face the Mu Ambassador. "I know your government can contact him and ask him for help."

The Mu Ambassador shook his head. "We spoke of this with our high priests and the Emperor the moment we suspected the truth. Manda is all too willing to fight. When he first battled King Ghidorah those 12,000 years ago he was young and strong. His Holiness had just assumed the Great Dragon's throne from his blessed mother Tiamat. Such is not the case now. Manda is now old and he used up what little remained of his strength in fighting the Atragon. His Holiness and we his people will help in other ways but not the way you ask."

Commander Abdul-rahman Ahmed looked at them. Sitting in silence before swallowing a most bitter pill, he said, "If Manda can't fight then what about his sons? ...Would Apophis stand against his father's enemy?"

Several people stared at Ahmed in shock on hearing that. The ambassador just rolled his eyes. "That blasphemer would sooner die and burn in hell than raise one talon for his father."

The Prime Minister of Japan asked, "And what of Zone Fighter? He stood in the defense of my country and the world during the Garoga War back in the 1970s. If Zone Fighter stood against space monsters before then, could he stand against them again?"

General Rhodes of Moon Base shook her head. "Space monsters were up his alley, but when he thought that Earth was in the clear he left us and did so without a way of contacting him if we were ever in trouble like that again."

The Emir of Saradia asked, "Is there any kind of biological weapon that could be used?"

As the designer and driving force behind project Toxin, Kyle Martin wondered at the irony of that. "No. Even if we were to get a sample of his DNA, any biological weapon would be useless. It would take years to crack the genetic code of something as alien as Ghidorah."

For the longest time, Miki had sat in silence but that last remark struck her for she was in turmoil over what the Elias has told her and what was in her own heart, as she had been ever since the meeting had been called. She cleared her throat for people to get people's attention. "What about Godzilla?"

Director Goodhue looked at her. "What about Godzilla?"

"Can't we get him to fight? We've already seen that he is willing to do it. As one of the strongest monsters of all, he might pull it off."

At that, most everybody in the room looked at her in dead ashen faced silence. It was finally Aso that found his voice, or his roar. "NEVER! That would be like fighting fire with gasoline! Godzilla would fight, yes. And to kill Ghidorah he'd destroy half the earth doing it."

Secretary General Santos nodded. "Aso's right. Also, it will be no use calling the Mysterians for help; they made their absolute loathing for us well known. And we have no way of contacting Zonefighter. As for the Guardian Monsters helping, they've been ruled out. It seems that we won't be able to expect any outside help. I've already discussed nuclear weapons but if he's an energy absorber like Hayashida says, they're going to be last resort only. As for what we can do, Commander Aso has already told us that he stands ready and I can say that all the world's militaries are now on high alert. Anything else?"

Prime Minister Yetrigar stood up to speak. "Yes, there is something else. Several of you seem to doubt the validity of what my princess Salno has said. Strangely, both a solution and proof will be revealed." At that the Prime Minister touched the back of his head started pulling at his hair. This earned some raised eyebrows but these led to gasps when he seemingly pulled his face off to reveal... that he was some kind of ape! To be more precise, he was a mustachioed gorilla in business suit and that spoke perfect English.

Prime Minister Tenzin Yetrigar examined the human mask he held in his hand. "As you can see I am not a human. I am a watchika whose race has inspired many tales of yetis in the Himalaya Mountains. In the ancient days a race of aliens called the Simeons, who were physically similar to Earth apes, often visited Earth, though with no intention of settling. That changed when King Ghidorah attacked. With the destruction he wrought, a large population of Simeons was left stranded on earth. They gravitated to their fellow off worlders, the Martians, and both settled in what is now called Selginia. My people renamed ourselves the Watchika and the Martians became the ruling family of the land.

"My people have used mystic means to make ordinary Watchikas into great giants to serve as guardians. I have been chosen for that task and even now prepare. If the change should come soon enough, I will fight to the last against our common enemy."

Secretary General Santos merely raised an eyebrow and deadpanned, "That's nice Yetrigar. How long will it take you to become this giant?"

At this, the Prime Minister halted. "The process takes... about five years."

Astronaut Glen banged his fist against the table. "Five years?! If half of what Salno said is true, we're not going to last five months!"

Santos calmly waved him aside. "Hayashida, when the meeting is done go with Yetrigar and talk about the transformation process. See if there is anyway you can speed it up."

Hayashida nodded.

Secretary General Santos got up. "Well, if that's all, meeting adjourned."

/o0o\

Somewhere, in a darkened place, quiet and serene, that was more of the mind than of the body, sat Miki Seguesa. She was alone in the empty blackness with her thoughts. Aso's words had stung her deeply. Most of all, as Steven Martin had told her, because Aso's words were true. In a surprising twist considering what she had suggested, Kyle had tried to cheer her up afterwards, but it was no use. There was only one man, or monster, to whom she could speak.

"Godzilla... Godzilla where are you?"

She was greeted with a familiar presence. Godzilla wondered what she was trying to communicate to him.

In the darkness, Miki didn't ask him where he was. She knew he rested at the bottom of the sea, tending his wounds and even saw him in the darkness. She asked, "Are you alright? When will you be strong again?"

Godzilla didn't know, though he did know that when he was well, he would make the wretch suffer.

"You will fight King Ghidorah for what he has done. I'm so sorry for what happened Godzilla." Miki paused. "I remember when my grandfather died. Losing your pack still hurts, doesn't it?"

Miki felt Godzilla's sorrows and broken heart. Yes, it still hurt. It also hurt for an even greater reason.

Miki asked "For what else does it hurt?"

She let herself see Godzilla's pain and sorrow. Long ago, in, the age of dinosaurs, there was the story of the Great Tyrannosaur—known to some like the Muvians as the Great Dragon—the first of all the saurian race. He was giant; he was as far beyond a kaijusaur as a kaijusaur was beyond a lizard. He came to the earth to make it fit for his children. With his might he pushed the continents together into one body so that his children's children might spread across the globe. He made it fit for them to live on the globe and thus did his dinosaurs forge the saurian empire. And at the moment of his death, or so said the legends, the night sky became alive with those stars that the humans called Draco so that all his children might one day go to a land beyond death with him.

Godzilla had known his mission to guard the saurian race from before his birth. He had been born to protect all saurians alongside his fellow kaijusaurs. Godzilla knew it was a lonely task, but it was worth it if his charges would live on. That made his failure to defeat King Ghidorah those eons ago all the more terrible. The dinosaurs had believed in him and he had failed them. The Great Tyrannosaur would never grant him entrance to the sacred realm, justly so for his wretched failure. He hadn't even been able to protect his own family; neither his mate nor his son. His mate… Gigantis. Looking down from the star of Draco how she must hate him for having failed her. It was a hatred he deserved returned a thousand fold.

Miki said "But she loved you; she would never hate you. They wouldn't want you to blame yourself for what had happened. You did all you could, you could have done nothing more."

Godzilla didn't believe her. All he knew was the fact that he failed. He had failed before but he knew that he would NOT fail again.

"You're going to fight King Ghidorah for what he did to Gigantis" stated Miki. "But why, why is it that you never told me of what had happened to you? Every time I asked you about where you came from, you said it wasn't important. You can trust me. Aren't we friends?"

Miki felt the saurian equivalent of a weary smile. Yes, of course the two of them were friends, and to some degree that was why he had never told her. She reminded him of Gigantis in some ways. Like her, Miki was so happy and full of hope. He didn't want to... jinx her or something.

Miki let her compassion go towards him. "Godzilla, I don't care what dangers are that I'll face... as long as they're with you."

/o0o\

The world stood watching the United Nations' General Assembly. Surrounding the main podium were delegates from virtually every nation in the world. Representing the whole of the human race, they sat ready to take the actions that would make or break the world. They sat in tier after tier of tables. Past them and in the aisles, were the reporters snapping pictures and eager to hear. There was Yuki Ichinose, Yuri Tachibana Connie Matsu, various members of the Lawrence clan, and others. Then Secretary General Santos himself appeared. Slowly and deliberately, he walked towards the green marble dais. He looked up to the golden wall above him and at the UN world symbol on it. He took his place before the black marble altar, and said his words for all the world to hear. The words were these:

My fellow people of Earth, our planet has met with a new and terrible challenge. The challenge is the monster called King Ghidorah. Ever since the Age of Monsters began with the arrival of Godzilla in 1954, the Earth has been plagued by horrific beasts. We have all stood against them. There has been no country in the world that has not had to fight them. In my own nation, the insect hordes of the Swarm have visited and wrought havoc upon the innocent.

And yet, King Ghidorah is an abomination the like of which our civilization has never seen. Before now, the only space monsters we have faced have been minor creatures like Dogora and Yog. Unlike them, King Ghidorah is a demon seeking to scour the Earth of life and who indeed has the power to do it. Credible sources have assured me that he is a space monster that has already killed entire worlds; that was why his last victims sought to imprison him in the sphere. Their hope was that the sphere might never be opened. Yet it was.

We can and we must make a stand against this monster. That was why these United Nations were formed. It was formed after a great war engulfed the world; to safeguard the world was why the UN was made. That was made clear when the Mysterians attempted to usurp this planet. That the UN could fulfill the duties given it was shown when it met the Mu Empire.

For years, G-Force and its parent organization, the United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center, have stood against the threat of giant monsters. Even so, King Ghidorah is beyond the power of G-Force whose responsibility this would often be. Therefore I have made this choice. Know this and hear my words that I ask that the Security Council declare that as of this day that a state of war exists between Earth and King Ghidorah. Yes, there is a war, a MONSTER WAR, to be waged and all the might of Earth's forces are to be mobilized if we are to win. This will perhaps be our greatest challenge ever but no matter how hard, no matter how desperate, we must believe we can win the Monster Wars. We can win and we will win. But only of we stand united as one world, as one planet.

Simply said, we can work together... or we can die.