Author: Joshua Strittmatter | Banner: Andrew Sudomerski

[Continued from Match 306]

Across the early morning mountain air in the ruins of Janjira, a siren blares.

A screeching howl mightier than the loudest thunder, yet at the same time more vulnerable than the most emotional of songs; a roaring cry that echoed beyond the island of Japan for all to hear, waking countless residents far and wide like a makeshift rooster cry. Rumbling the island with tiny earthquakes from its sheer auditory power, echoing for miles in hopes of being heard very soon. It had been a day since Rodan, the Giant Monster of the Skies, had defeated the mighty King of the Monsters, Godzilla, and sent him sinking out of sight below the ocean waves to an unknown fate. The irradiated Pteranodon stood perched atop the peak of Mt Fuji, his prehistoric silhouette creating a powerfully nightmarish outline against the slowly brightening morning sky. His repeated cry yearned through the gentle wind, reverberating through the trees and off the mountains like the ghostly echoes of a bygone age.

Why, not a single resident of Japan knew.

But one thing was known–the J.S.D.F. had taken such a display as a threatening gesture, and after the defeat and possible death of Godzilla, Japan wasn’t willing to share their homeland with another Daikaiju after already having done so unknowingly for 15 years. So, with a little help from Monarch, they assembled their maser tanks and all their best aircraft, loaded their recently developed full-metal missiles, and all rode out towards Mt. Fuji to do battle.

At first, the mighty pterosaur responded to their arrival with aggressive body gestures and threatening cries, telling them all to scram–or else. Unfortunately for Rodan, his warnings fell on ears just as deaf as those of his defeated rival, and all weapons fired upon him at once.

Thus, his temper was ignited.

Filling the air with screeches of rage, Rodan took to the air and laid waste to the entire offensive. Hundreds of the bravest lives imaginable were never seen again that day; tanks and choppers alike crunched, crushed, and struck down from the air to meet their end in explosions of flame as one by one, the enraged pterosaur wiped out the entire counteroffensive in but a minute’s worth. The once peaceful, calm scenery had been turned into a field of flaming ruins; the prehistoric reptile tearing asunder his enemies and smiting their ruin upon the mountain’s slope. Nothing could topple the winged saurian.

For a time, Rodan simply stood upon his usual perch, dry heaving in frustrated exhaustion. But as time passed, his temper slowly cooled, and before long the air was filled with his rumbling cries once more. Only occasionally would he cease his cries and take a break, an occasion which allowed the frightened residents to breathe sighs of relief, if only temporarily. But it wouldn’t be too long before Rodan’s thunderous cackle cracked through the sound barrier to startle everyone out of their skin, and the process would begin anew. All the way into the night the siren rang, while debate raged on about why the crimson pterosaur demonstrated such behavior.

The following day, the question was answered.

At the break of dawn, as the stars began to disappear from the black heavens and the sky turned to a brightening purple shade, a call answered back. And the sleeping pterosaur was awakened instantly. From the brightening morning sky, another Rodan appeared. A female; brown as the earth’s crust, she soared from the heavens like a giant osprey, crying back to the crimson male who ecstatically rushed to meet her. Screeching thrillful greetings that birthed a new morning chorus, they yearned for each other, their winged shadows casting massive silhouettes that zipped and wisped across the ground beneath them as they circled amongst one another, their cries a deafening resonance that triggered mass public disruption in the civilized world. Awestruck, frightened citizens gathered en-masse on the highest viewpoints they could find, holding their phones high and their recording tabs running as they captured every moment of the unexpected union on video for all the world to later see; shaky and still cameras alike glimpsing two colossal winged shapes rendered black against the light of the rising sun, circling like giant hawks as their powerful roars embedded themselves into the minds of all who saw the event, virtual or in-person.

No longer lonely in a massive, dangerous world all but devoid of their kind, the pair settled on the center of Mt. Fuji; the center of the active volcano became their nest that day, the male’s once mournful cries having devolved into much mellower bellows and soft, cooing rumbles shared by his newly-arrived counterpart, as they communicated with each other, talked to each other as day passed into afternoon; afternoon subsequently fell into dusk, and dusk to night.

Days passed; the reptilian pair were more than occasionally glimpsed spending time together, bonding over their shared company. Gentle rumbles resonated from their throats as they nuzzled together, establishing and strengthening their social connection as time elapsed. Once in a while, one would take the day to swoop off to the ocean, before returning hours later with a whale, shark or giant squid in their beak as a gift for the other. But more often than not, the pair were spotted sharing a banquet in the fissure where the male Rodan had first appeared when he battled Godzilla; the hole in the earth was an opening to a large cavern that ran through much of Japan–as well as a goldmine for a population of giant insects dubbed “Meganulon.” Snatching the rhino-sized dragonflies in their beaks, the Rodan pair feasted until there were no more of the monstrous insects left.

Then, one starry night, a full thirty days since the male Rodan fought the Monster King himself, an event that would at first go unnoticed by the civilized world, but certainly ripple through those of natural and human alike, came to pass.

Under the glimmering stars and the serenity of the chirping crickets and cicadas, they mated. The following days, the signs of new life arriving started truly showing, and all doubt died like a mouse bitten by a mamba amongst the wary citizens following confirmations from Monarch.

And so it came, that a month later the two Pteranodons remained nestled upon the mountain peak, resting through the day. Snow poured from the clouds in flakes the size of a man’s palm, falling upon the crimson skin of Godzilla’s defeater; some melting out of existence, others remaining as more flakes piled on to cover his skin in sheets of beautiful white. The male Rodan grumbled lowly as he looked over the snow-blanketed kingdom of Janjira, his yellow eyes peeled for any signs of a threat. His watch shift came to a rather abrupt end, however, when he heard a strained groan behind him.

The female Rodan, laying as comfortably as she could make herself in the center of the icy nest, lifted her head off the snowy earth to groan in pain, an event that spurred the male into action. Spreading his wings and lunging off his post, Rodan glided swiftly over to his mate as she emitted another rumbling cry, a little more deafening, as her lower region suddenly quivered. Her legs trembled lightly; her abdomen convulsed ever so slightly. It was happening, the event that they had waited for was upon them at last. Cooing gently, Rodan bent down and nuzzled his pained mate as she gave birth, blanketing her under his wings as a sign of protectiveness while he watched the scene take place in equal parts anxious worry and silent joy. And there, near hidden under his membranous limbs, the female convulsed again as she laid a single white, glistening, elephant-sized egg.

Placed perfectly in the exact center of the nest, wrapped protectively under a single crimson wing, while its parents exchanged gentle nuzzles and blissful rumbles.

*****

Monarch Outpost 61

“Sir, it’s happening all over again.”

Houston Brooks wiped the droplets from his glasses as he trudged into the tent, grateful to take a break from the sheets of rain pelting his soaked coat. All eyes fell to the man at his very entrance, his presence conveying immense respect from eyes old and young alike. They looked to him for answers and wisdom–especially now. After what had taken place not even half an hour ago–and what was beginning to transpire in its wake–tensions were heightening more than ever for the first time in a long while, and all Monarch personnel wanted to hear Mr. Brooks’ words on the matter.

“They’re awakening again, aren’t they?”

Across from him, the youngest of the scientists nodded. “It’s just like when King Ghidorah called to them–they’re all getting riled up and leaving their natural habitats.” He motioned towards the monitors, each of which showed a live feed of the known Kaiju that inhabited the world. “Rio de Janeiro, New Jersey–hell, even Skull Island.” Brooks looked to the monitors, watching as the monolithic goliaths lumbered about on whatever path their instincts would take them on the high-def cameras, clearly acting up more than usual.

He then turned to the main monitor, the most recently added to their collection–and the one paid by far the most surveillance. “Oh, no…” Brooks muttered barely above a whisper, before turning away. “They’ve reproduced?” the young scientist before him nodded slowly. Brooks held a fist to his mouth as he sighed, taking this all into account. “That’s why they’re acting up,” he eventually spoke. “They’re either responding to the male’s mating cries from a month ago, or they’ve heard the female’s labor.”

“Are you saying they’re proclaiming him the new alpha?” another scientist piped up amongst the lot. “No,” Brooks responded, “he’s never been calling in the other Titans. Whatever wasn’t a mating cry was a territorial warning. He wanted everyone to stay away.”

“So, you’re saying that they’re not going to follow him,” the Monarch official addressed, “you’re saying that they’re all coming there to challenge him. To steal his title.”

“Maybe… but then again, it also could be–”

An otherworldly chorus reverberated in the air, echoing across the canyons in an angelic wail. Everyone stood to their full height from hearing the sound, their once anxious nerves immediately soothed calm as the memory of what uttered such a noise came back to them. Houston Brooks smiled as he turned around, walking towards the entrance of the tent. Reaching out, he grabbed the flaps and gently opened them as he stepped back outside into the rainy air.

A heavenly blue light pulsated within the raging waterfall. Illuminating the camp in a warm and truly welcoming light, as if the hand of a goddess had shone a divine lantern through the watery downpour to bless them. Such a notion would prove not particularly far from the truth, for Houston Brooks knew exactly what lay within the rushing wall of water. He knew what to expect as the light intensified, pulsing with an audible rumble that sounded somewhat akin to a quickening heartbeat.

And then the water parted in half to make way as the light unveiled itself, revealing its arthropodic body and unfurling its angelic wings. A brightness to rival the sun shone upon all who witnessed the mighty resurrection of the Queen of the Monsters, her two blue compound eyes fixing Houston with a gentle gaze, as if looking into his mind and seeing his intentions. The old man smiled as he gazed upon her majestic form, and with what he swore was a small nod in his direction, Mothra responded to the friendly gesture with a chirp.

Rearing her scythe-shaped arms and flapping her wings once to test her returned strength, the reincarnated goddess loosed a powerful chirp to the world, informing it of her return. But it was not just a call of annunciation. It was a call to action. A call to arms. A call to all Titans that their Queen had need of them.

For there was a great task needing to be done.

Dr. Ling walked up beside Brooks, smiling at the return of her family’s beloved goddess. She knew what Mothra was doing, what she was planning, what was to transpire next. “They’re heeding the call of their queen,” Ling whispered loud enough for Brooks to hear. “They will restore balance.”

Mothra chirped again, and with a flap of her wings she lifted off the ground, raising high above her human audience as she set her course.

“She’s leading an uprising.”

*****

In the blackest pits of the ocean, a call beckoned.

A sound from somewhere so far away, so far beyond the reaches of the ocean, that any human being would assume that nothing could ever hear a sound of any kind, however the volume, from such an incredible distance. Thousands of miles away the call yearned, cried for an answer. Some responded to its cry, heeding its need and informing its source of their assistance. But they were not the only answers the call begged for.

Deep in the largest cracks torn in the ocean floor, far down at the bottom of the underwater cliffs, a pair of yellow eyes slid open for the first time in months; eyes that belonged to a lifeform who’s massive outline was only barely made out by the faint, red light of the small lava vents running through the pit’s veins.

And spinal protrusions weaved in a legendary shape glowed ever so dimly from the resulting radiation…

*****

Janjira, Mt. Fuji

The first bird chirped its welcoming song into the cold, dark morning air, for the feathered dinosaur could see what most lifeforms could not. A faint, violet light had just barely begun to peak over the oceanic distance, signaling the death of night. The birth of a new dawn was upon the island of Japan. The bird chirped and chirped again, singing a chorus that was soon joined by others of its kind. As the light began to grow by the hour, the outlines of the land beginning to become more visually apparent at its coming, the sky began to gradually change color in its wake. Hour by hour, it went from black, to dark blue, to an eventual growing shade of bluish gray. Puffy clouds hung all over the sky, blotting out the sun, but another phenomenon of beauty greeted the awakening ghost city of Janjira in its place.

By sheer one and a million chance, the first snowflake landed upon the nostril of a great giant, triggering a chain reaction that caused nerves to ignite, nasal muscles to flare, and then explode forward with a booming sneeze as a prehistoric skull topped with a crown of three horns raised off the snowy limestone, yellow eyes drooping open tiredly.

A rumbling yawn exited Rodan’s toothed beak as he pushed off with his great wings, spreading them at their full magnificent span when he stood to his full height and stretched his giant build before relaxing. Behind him, Radon snored softly as she lay snug and comfy in their volcanic nest, one wing draped over their precious egg like a blanket. Rodan stared warmly at her as she dozed, taking a moment to lean over and gently nuzzle her head with his own, then moved down to do the same to their egg. Patiently awaiting her awakening, he turned back to let his gaze wander over the landscape that was their home. Let his razor-sharp gaze drift across the abandoned city as the morning snowfall continued to build, the flakes growing bigger and increasing in number as time went on.

A misty breath escaped Rodan’s beak as he sighed contently. Such low temperatures were normally a deterrent for most reptiles, forcing them into hibernation, but for the radioactive pterosaurs it wasn’t a problem in the slightest. The Giant Monster of the Skies had never seen such a beautiful sight in his life, and he was elated beyond proper description to share such a part of the world with the slumbering being behind him. With no more threats having approached them for over a month, the two flying reptiles had this territory all to themselves for the years to come. And when their offspring finally hatched free of its shelled confinement, such a gorgeous overlook would be its first sight in life.

Behind him, a growling yawn groaned into existence as Radon finally awoke, shaking her head as she finally stood up to her full height, wings still curled to form a cloaking barrier around their egg. Turning about, the pterosaurs nuzzled affectionately, low coos greeting one another from their throats.

A call echoed from somewhere in the distance, catching the pterosaurs’ attention. Human beings could not hear it, but the auditory accuracy of Rodan and his mate was far superior to those of human beings, as well as a variety of other animals. So even from such a considerable distance, the Pteranodon pair were caught by surprise by the distant wail. Rodan narrowed his eyes as, from somewhere even his binocular vision couldn’t detect, the call wailed again. The monster of the skies didn’t know what to make of it… at least, not until he heard it a third time. And a little more clearly at that.

It sounded almost like… a challenge?

Rodan threw his wings wide open, taking a step forward, and with all the air in his lungs let loose the most powerful screech he could muster, with a meaning every bit as viciously clear as it sounded: STAY AWAY! DON’T COME NEAR!

The screech rebounded around the mainland with formidable force, actually managing to stop the snowfall for half a second. Rodan snorted as the last rumbling end of his cry echoed repeatedly. That would give whatever it was out there something to think about. For a few seconds, no reply came their way, and both Rodan and Radon sighed with satisfaction. The worst had been avoided–

–until a chorus of different cries answered back.

Stilling in an instant, a cold chill went down the pterosaurs’ spines. His gaze returning back to the overview, Rodan scoured the land with grim silence, trying to find whatever it was that had been so arrogant as to ignore his warning. As he looked about, he began to feel light vibrations in the earth. Repeated, in a pattern. As if each were the footfalls of beasts of similar size to him…

Far in the reaches of the ocean, now slightly visible through the snowfall, Rodan spotted them. Behind him, Radon growled viciously as she stood above the egg; she saw them too. Four massive shapes, wading through the water, and as they slowly increased in visibility it was clear they were headed towards Mt. Fuji.

Towards them.

Waving his head from side to side, the giant mammoth known to the world as Behemoth howled his elephantine war cry at the nuclear pterosaurs. Beside him, two MUTOs flailed their scythe-shaped limbs and bellowed their otherworldly cries at the Rodan pair. And to the far right, the adult Skullcrawler raised his bone-encased head to the sky and screamed his hunger for the Rodans’ flesh, his yellow eyes glaring at them hungrily.

Rodan screeched another warning cry at them, but still they continued to wade through the ever-shallowing water in their direction, their intentions made clear.

They were all responding to Godzilla’s defeat.

Rodan didn’t know how any one of these goliaths related to the defeated King of the Monsters, but the very fact that they were here to bring harm to him and his family merely because he had defended his home from a prideful and overconfident apex predator made his radioactive blood boil. He was growing sick and fed up with being constantly under attack by threats–first humans, now other Kaiju, and he didn’t need to so much as look at his mate to know she felt the same. Marching beside him, Radon roared an equally powerful battle cry at the oncoming pack, telling them to get out or else.

A bluish green light began to illuminate through the snowfall, far above the marching pack of monsters. Rodan saw it, grumbling defensively when a distant chirp echoed in the wind. Brighter and brighter the rays of light shone through the sheets of snow and puffy clouds, beginning to illuminate the silent kingdom of Janjira like the rays of the sun–until a powerful boom suddenly parted the clouds in all directions, blowing away the snow and revealing a glowing mass hovering hundreds of meters in the now exposed blue sky. Flapping its wings like an angel, leaving wisps of glowing particles in their wake that seemed to act as imprints of its pace. The rays of light shining upon the land were so bright that the Rodans had to cover their eyes with their wings for a moment to protect them.

A booming cry resonated from the glowing lepidopteran as she glared down upon the irradiated Pteranodons with her multifaceted compound eyes. Mothra had found the one responsible for Godzilla’s death, and now the wrathful Queen of the Monsters would at last avenge her fallen King. And beneath her the other Titans roared out to her, answering the call of their queen. Heeding her word. The false king below her had not only murdered the rightful Alpha, but to her very own surprise, had also mated and reproduced. It was an imbalance that they couldn’t allow.

As the Titans finally struck land, their queen chirped again, their objective clear. It was time to restore balance.

Standing protectively over his egg, Rodan screamed wrathfully at the oncoming beasts. This was their last warning! If they didn’t get out soon, they would all meet the same fate as Godzilla. Alongside him, Radon howled her own fierce war cry, challenging the Queen of the Monsters’ authority, and Rodan couldn’t help but steal a quick glance of fond admiration at her. The currently dispelled clouds above began to reform ever so slowly, gradually returning the sky to a much more foreboding appearance; an only fair parallel for what was to come.

Shining her legendary God Rays upon the pterosaur pair, Mothra chirped again, and all the Titans roared in her wake and gave pursuit.

The male MUTO bellowed and flapped his wings, taking flight towards the nesting reptiles. The Skullcrawler screeched ferally and leaped into a bounding run, powering towards the slope of the mountain and beginning to climb its great form with little effort. Screeching powerfully, Radon burst off the ground and into the air as she rocketed towards the male MUTO, colliding with him in mid-air to begin their combat.

The large Skullcrawler had barely even made it halfway up the mountain’s length before a beam of violet nuclear energy seared into his chest, knocking him off-balance and sending him tumbling down the mountain’s slope to the very bottom. But beside him, Behemoth roared loudly as he stormed up the mountain in the lizard’s place. Rodan screeched a warning, but the giant mammoth ignored it and continued his barrel charge. So the Monster of the Skies flapped off the ground and took immediate flight, rushing down towards the towering pachyderm. Behemoth reared his head to the left, preparing to swing his massive tusks–only to be caught by surprise when Rodan clapped his wings and shot away, leaving a sonic boom that tore into the mammoth’s form and sent him tumbling down the mountain like the Skullcrawler before him. But Rodan did not continue to engage him–instead, the mutant Pteranodon veered back towards the nest, just as he saw Mothra beginning to descend towards it herself.

Roaring angrily, the Monster of the Skies slammed into the bioluminescent moth, knocking her silly while Rodan perched down over his egg. The Queen of the Monsters righted herself and took flight once more, circling around the volcanic peak like a hunting hawk.

A wailing roar caught Rodan’s attention, causing him to turn around. Two scythed limbs speared into the edge of the peak before pulling themselves up, revealing themselves to be the barbed female MUTO. Rodan glared furiously at his two oppressors, his talons remained firmly planted in the snow-covered limestone as he stood over his precious egg. A savage rumble growled from deep in the pit of his gut, so savage it stopped the eight-legged nucleovore in her tracks from fear for just a second. It wasn’t just a warning; it was a promise. A violent promise.

Come near my child, and I will rip you to shreds.

Her fear suddenly died, and the female MUTO reared up on her hind legs and denounced the crimson pterosaur with another wailing cry. But before she could charge, something large suddenly slammed into her from above, flooring her and sending her and whatever it was that impacted her tumbling to the bottom of the mountain. The eight-legged predator fought to right herself, and discovered that the cause of her current predicament was her winged mate, having been thrown right into her.

Rodan looked up to see his own spouse, cawing his thanks to her. Roaring reassurances to her beloved, Radon took a nosedive, headed straight for the other beasts. She would handle the terrestrial Titans, while he kept Mothra at bay.

*****

Hovering above the recovering Kaiju, Radon flapped her wings in repetitive bursts as she kicked up a series of hurricane-force winds. The Titans below her bellowed their respective cries as the powerful winds beat on them painfully, blowing them about like leaves before they could even have a chance of getting to their feet, all the while Radon cackled a dominating cry as she refused to let up her attack. However, she did well to not taunt them–this was not time to get cocky. Such an attitude could lead to big mistakes, fatal ones. Especially when her own life, as well as those of her mate and offspring, were on the line.

So, she continued her attack, keeping the other monsters at bay for as long as she could.

However, while three of the combatants were of such considerable size and mass that they were–for the time being at least–far too exhausted to be able to muster an offensive through the nonstop windstorm, one was not.

Managing to skewer the ground with all four limbs, the male MUTO held himself in place as he waited for the right moment, the right time to make his move. Pressing low to the earth like a big cat, the winged predator reared his wings upwards as he prepared to push off when he deemed the time right. Above, Radon kept up her assault, knowing that her winds were quickly tiring her opponents out to the point they would be immobile for some time. However, amidst the clouds of snow and dust, she failed to make out the male MUTO resisting the gusts as he waited still.

The brown pterosaur kept flapping her wings.

Powering his wings in a single flap, the Kaiju-hunter rocketed through the hurricane winds and emerged in clean, soft air at equal height to his enemy. Screeching in surprise, Radon cut off her attack just fast enough to brace herself when the MUTO lunged at her, scythed arms raised. The Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism collided with the monster pterosaur, attempting to knock her out of the sky, but to his surprise Radon held well against his offensive and pushed back, beating at him with her wings. Her curved talons piercing the ebony flesh of his shoulders, Radon yanked her quarry upward as she performed a loop, then yanked down hard and flung the winged amphibian to the ground. Diving down to his level, the timber pterosaur swiped past him in a near-blur, slashing at his skin with her chest spikes.

Bellowing fiercely, the male MUTO pushed back off the ground and took flight, keeping his gaze fixed on the bird-like reptile who soared to meet him. Radon cackled as she prepared to perform a similar maneuver as before–and was caught by surprise when the MUTO hooked a claw into her shoulder. As if that wasn’t surprising enough, he wound himself around in midair until he was directly clutching her from behind, proceeding to clamp his jaws upon the back of her neck like a big cat. But as strong as his bite was, it was a huge struggle to pressure enough force to actually pierce the Pteranodon’s thick skin. Nonetheless, he held on, all the while scratching at her back with his smaller pair of chest-arms.

Radon, however, would prove full of surprises.

Once more, the flying reptile allowed herself to cease airborne mobility and began to dive. Whistling through the air like a missile, Radon turned herself upside-down just seconds before she reached the ground, and the male MUTO was equal parts shocked and helpless as he was smashed between the volcanic earth and 24,000 metric-tons of maddened pterodactyloid.

Radon screeched triumphantly as she stood to her feet–and was suddenly knocked sprawling herself when something incredibly heavy smashed into her. Behemoth’s air-shattering cry rang through the ghost city of Janjira, informing her of his return to the battle.

*****

High-pitched chirps mixed with angry cackles as two winged titans flew about amongst each other, exchanging repeated blows with their respective sharp-edged appendages. But as Rodan neared the moth goddess for another strike, Mothra suddenly shone her God Rays at full intensity in his face, blinding the pterosaur. Screeching in visual pain, the Giant Monster of the Skies backed off as he allowed himself to fall to lower heights, intent on not rushing the divine insect while his egg’s safety was at stake. But as he took a moment to look down, his eyes widened at what he saw next.

The Skullcrawler had reached the slope of the mountain, and was already bounding towards the egg!

Howling with fury, the supersonic pterosaur dove down without a second thought towards the reptilian cretin. His skull-encased head snapping up, the Skullcrawler reacted startlingly fast; changing targets from the egg to the parent, the two-legged lizard leaped up and coiled his tail around the mutant Pteranodon, while at the same time clamping his pointed jaws around his neck. Hissing hungrily, the Skullcrawler began to shake his head from side to side, his countless rows of teeth scraping against Rodan’s crimson skin in an attempt to ravage it. Rodan shrieked in outrage as he fell on his back, beating his wings against the ravenous predator in an attempt to dislodge him. The lizard planted his clawed limbs upon the wings, pinning them to the ground, but even this did little to deter the angry father. To the Skullcrawler’s surprise, Rodan changed tactics and began to slash away at his soft underbelly with his taloned feet.

That’s when Rodan allowed his head to fall back–and caught a glimpse of Mothra descending towards the egg.

His already maddened thrashing suddenly kicked into overdrive with new levels of adrenaline, and Rodan slashed harder and deeper with his talons. It wasn’t too long before the Skullcrawler was forced to relinquish his grip and howl in pain–long enough for Rodan to blast him with his Uranium Heat Beam, sending him falling away with a pained screech.

Not wasting a second, Rodan flapped to his feet and ran on his own two legs, faster than Mothra originally thought he could. The moth goddess knew what was good for her in this moment, and quickly flapped away just as Rodan pounced on her former position. But as she attempted to regain altitude, the monster of the skies took aim and fired forth a second Uranium Beam that struck her abdomen, eliciting a chirp of pain. Not willing to see how much damage prolonged exposure to such an attack could do to her relatively frail build, Mothra veered out of harm’s way before she could find out.

Unfortunately, Rodan had no time for rest or recovery; a pair of jaws clamped down on the back of his neck, and a familiar tail winding around his body a second time before squeezing. But unlike before, Rodan did not fall under the Skullcrawler’s advance and remained standing, bellowing a defiant cry. Jutting his head back, the nuclear Pteranodon plunged his crown of horns deep into the bottom of the Skullcrawler’s neck, causing the reptile to relinquish his grasp and gag a spout of crimson liquid. Rodan, unsatisfied with this, thrust his head back a second time, and knocked the lizard clear off of him…

…Mere seconds before Mothra lunged down from above with impressive speed, landing hard on his face.

Rodan shrieked madly as he attempted to fling the arthropod off him, but the lepidopteran deity remained firmly planted on his beak, slashing away at his face with her razor-sharp arms, kicking up showers of sparks.

*****

Radon screeched in pain as Behemoth slammed her with his massive tusks, sending her skidding across the ground in a burst of dirt and snow.

But despite the incredible power of the hit, Radon was kicking back to her feet rather quickly, cawing sharply at the trunkless pachyderm. Tremors to her left reached her ears too late as something else tackled her from the right, knocking her silly a second time. Radon cackled in anguish as she felt herself being trampled under the pointed limbs of her attacker, realizing it was the female MUTO. Running her over like a car, the arthropodic amphibian dashed to Behemoth’s side, chattering a call of assistance. The giant mammoth trumpeted in reply, before turning back towards the recovering Pteranodon.

Behemoth broke into another charge, the female MUTO right beside him. But as they neared the winged saurian, Radon took them by surprise when she kicked off the ground in a powerful lunge, rushing to meet them. Slamming the titanic pair with her wings, Radon took advantage of their halted charge and pounced on the female MUTO, who she perceived as the bigger threat. Tackling the multi-limbed amphibian to the ground in a surprising display of physical strength, the prehistoric reptile began to peck aggressively at her triangular head, too fast for even the MUTO to keep up with. Reaching out with her chest-mounted forelimbs, the barbed MUTO attempted to slash away at Radon’s chest in a feeble attempt to deter her, but only succeeded in shedding showers of sparks against the pterosaur’s armored torso.

Radon continued pecking bloody wounds into the female MUTO, eliciting bellowing wails that howled into the snowy air. But as Radon reared up and prepared to drive her beak into the nucleovore’s neck, she felt herself being yanked and thrown upwards by two strong, bony protrusions. Soaring clear over Behemoth’s head, she flapped her wings as she gracefully re-positioned herself in midair before she could hit the ground. Behemoth bellowed his intimidating war cry at the hovering Pteranodon, while the female MUTO shook herself off and returned to her feet with a defiant roar. Despite her injuries, she was still undeterred by the pain and more than ready to continue the battle against the winged saurian.

Radon cackled mightily as her horns sparked with nuclear power, and before her opponents could react accordingly she spewed forth her Uranium Heat Beam. Both Titans were too large and heavy to avoid such an attack, and the snowy air was filled with their cries of pain as the beam of nuclear power scorched their flesh in repeated bursts. Flying in circles around the titanic colossi, Radon spewed beam after beam in a repeated spam attack, rage glinting in her yellow eyes.

Behemoth roared and reared up on his hind legs, intent on slamming the Pteranodon out of the air, but Radon swerved easily out of his path–and the moment he hit the ground, she dove and slammed her beak into his face. The elephantine goliath howled miserably as he fell, blood falling from his sage-colored fur. Radon hovered above her fallen adversary, her horns aglow once more–but before she could fire an electromagnetic pulse suddenly washed over the pterosaur, temporarily stunning her as she hovered, and a wailing cry mocked her from behind as the female MUTO took all the credit for seemingly disabling her most formidable weapon.

As Radon turned on her, she was taken by surprise when Behemoth burst to his feet and swiped his tusks once more, scoring a direct hit! A cry of rage exploded from her beak as she was sent skidding across the ground like a skipping stone, which soon turned to a growl as she finally rested. But as she attempted to right herself, she suddenly found herself trampled under the heels of her elephantine adversary. Howling with feral fury, Behemoth stomped and pounded the downed pterosaur into the ground with his great forelimbs, all the while knocking and smacking her repeatedly with his oversized tusks. As if to make matters worse for the timber pterosaur, the female MUTO pounced upon her, joining the frenzy as she stabbed and hacked at Radon’s body with her scythed limbs. Again and again the Titans pounded their quarry, eliciting loud cackles of pain and anger while they themselves bellowed in triumph.

But unfortunately, their victory was short lived.

Using her fury to boost her strength, Radon shrieked and clapped her wings together, producing a powerful sonic boom that sent both Titans reeling away with screams of agony as blood dripped from freshly rended battle wounds. Lunging off the ground with a roar of bestial rage, Radon rammed herself straight into Behemoth like an arrow with a thunderous CRACK! that echoed like thunder. As the prehistoric elephant recoiled from the force of the strike, Radon took aim and fired a Uranium Heat Beam that struck his chest. Unable to tank the force of the hit, Behemoth trumpeted one last time and fell backward with a colossal quake that kicked up masses of snow and volcanic dirt.

The MUTO cried out in shock, surprised that her EMP had not negated the pterosaur’s breath weapon–which then turned to a shriek of pain when Radon blasted her in the face. As she held her head down in an attempt to shield it from the beam’s wrath, the pterosaur cut it off–only to rocket forward and slam dead-center into her head. A sheet of red flowing down her skull and her brain afflicted with a serious concussion, the female MUTO wailed a defeated cry before falling, out of the battle for the time being.

She, like Behemoth, learned the hard way that Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned.

*****

Mothra chirped in anguish as she was flung against the volcanic limestone in a spray of snow. And such anguish only heightened when she felt a massive form suddenly thrown on top of her, a yowl of pain revealing it to be the wounded Skullcrawler. The bloodied, two-legged lizard dazedly struggled to find his feet while Mothra strained underneath him, chirping for him to get up. Growling, the Skullcrawler finally stood off the lepidopteran guardian as he turned to face his true adversary, who stood across from him a mere hundred meters away, fixing him with a furious glower.

Rodan cackled sharply at them, daring them to try their luck.

The Queen of the Monsters chirped her defiance before flapping her wings, taking to the air once more. His horns crackling, Rodan loosed a Uranium Heat Beam, but the giant moth near-effortlessly avoided the attack before diving past Rodan’s face, slashing it with her claws. Howling with fury, Rodan fired a second time, but missed once more.

It was then that the irradiated Pteranodon felt something long and scaly coil around his body for the third time, and he whirled on the Skullcrawler with a screech of rage–however, the subterranean reptile resorted to a different tactic. Squeezing the pterosaur with all the strength in his coils, the apex predator of Skull Island lifted and threw Rodan all the way to the other side of the volcanic peak; the winged saurian landing hard on his back with a quake that rumbled through the depths of the mountain.

But, unlike in normal circumstances, Rodan didn’t stay down for so much as two seconds.

Fueled by raging levels of adrenaline, the flying reptile turned himself over and planted one foot upon the ground–and his yellow eyes widened when he saw his adversaries closing in on his unborn child as quickly as they could.

But Rodan was still faster.

A burst of speed that outclassed all animals on earth propelled the Giant Monster of the Skies forward, zooming towards the attackers like a missile. The Skullcrawler drooled hungrily as his long, prehensile tongue lolled out, wrapping around the egg as he prepared to yank it towards his gaping jaws–and reeled back with a scream of agony that threatened to shatter the sky when Rodan’s Uranium Heat Beam fired forth to sever his tongue from his maw! Before he even knew it, Rodan had collided with him at full force, piercing his side with his beak with a strength so great it shattered his ribcage and knocked him sprawling towards the edge of the mountain’s peak. Mothra rushed forward in an attempt to stall the enraged father, but a sonic boom from Rodan’s wings sent her flying as Rodan pounced back towards the injured Skullcrawler. By now, the lizard was too weak to dodge or fight back, and with unmatched speed and merciless ferocity Rodan dove like a falcon and drove his beak clean through his neck, piercing the limestone beneath.

Normally, Rodan would take a moment to watch the life ebb away from his mortally wounded enemy, but circumstances such as now demanded urgency be taken. So, quickly retracting his bloodied beak, the Pteranodon kicked the dying reptile and sent him tumbling down the mountain slope, never to come back up again. Whirling back around, the monster of the skies flew back around to the center of the nest, gracefully landing above his egg. Taking a moment to nuzzle the shelled womb of his unborn child, Rodan turned back to his remaining opponent with a furious cackle.

Mothra continued to circle around in the air, screeching her signature cry as she seemingly taunted the irradiated pterosaur.

For a full minute, the insect goddess did nothing but keep Rodan’s attention fixed on her, ignoring his angry cackles that rumbled Mt. Fuji to its deepest caverns. And at the same time, Rodan did not move from his post–he continued to stand above his cherished egg, guarding it with his life.

An eerie howl made Rodan freeze, his eyes widening with fear; not for himself, but for the unborn child still confined within the egg he stood over. As he quickly turned to view the source of the sound, he hunched down to shield the shelled object with his wings as, to his horror, the male MUTO rose up from behind the edge of the mountain, lunging towards the flying reptile with raised arms. Rodan ducked just as the winged amphibian flew over where he had been standing mere moments ago, hooked limbs slashing nothing but cold air and snow. As Rodan rose back up to glare at his new opponent, the MUTO circled around to the far edge of the mountain, seemingly readying for another go.

A shrieking chirp seized Rodan’s attention, making him turn around just in time to see Mothra zooming towards him at her top speed; abdomen raised, her body poised to clamp down upon him like a hunting hornet–

–and another cackling screech drowned her out as a winged, brown-scaled body whizzed seemingly out of nowhere and slammed her right out of the air. Radon had taken up the fight!

The two combatants tumbled about before kicking apart, steadying themselves in midair as Mothra chirped angrily at the female pterosaur, who screamed into her face in response. Then, lunging at the same time, both creatures met once more in physical combat as they began to claw and tear into each other.

Grateful that his significant other had taken up the battle against the Queen of the Monsters, Rodan turned back just in time to see the male MUTO flying at him. This time, the nucleovore managed to pierce the Pteranodon’s shoulders with his hooked claws, drawing spurts of blood. But the Giant Monster of the Skies cackled back in defiance as he pecked back at the predator’s face with his beak, engaging the MUTO in a back-and-forth battle of claws vs. beak. Scythed limbs cut and slashed against armored, prehistoric flesh while a beak among the sharpest in the animal kingdom pierced and rended great battle wounds against elephantine skin as black as night; the two giants pushed and mauled at one another in a colossal dogfight of mythical proportions while their ear-splitting war cries filled the sound barrier.

And all the while, Rodan did well to keep the attacker away from his egg, ensuring its safety.

Both Kaiju were made of some of the most durable flesh on the planet; both equally capable of withstanding truly mighty blows in combat from other monsters despite their seemingly frail stature. Both were fighting back relentlessly against one another as they withstood each other’s respective mauling–however, one of them was nonetheless taking the hits more heavily. His ebony skin beginning to turn shades of crimson due to the small rivers of blood running from his newly-formed scars, the male MUTO’s attacks were growing weaker as he began to contemplate the possibility of needing to back off, as Rodan’s pecking was beginning to wear on him considerably.

His horns glowing with amber light, Rodan suddenly ceased their monster melee and fired his Uranium Heat Ray upon the MUTO’s chest, sending the winged predator reeling back with an alien howl. But as Rodan kept up fire, the ebony amphibian raised his right claw, which had begun to glow a bright shade of red. Howling mightily, he brought it down hard upon the ground and released an electromagnetic pulse that washed over the land for five miles straight.

Rodan cut off his attack, startled by what he had just seen. He could’ve sworn he had seen such an occurrence before, earlier in the battle. Had this creature been where it came from?

The MUTO charged towards him with a battle roar, pouncing on and knocking the crimson pterosaur to the snow-covered limestone, sprawling beneath his feet as his hooked claws pierced his shoulders yet again. The MUTO bellowed and began to slash and hack at the floored Rodan, causing the Pteranodon to rear up with a cackle of rage in an attempt to dislodge his attacker, but another blow from the MUTO’s right limb put him back down. The MUTO pierced again–but this time, he was attempting to hack away at the base of Rodan’s shoulders. A clear attempt to disable his wings. The saurian’s horns crackled once more, and the MUTO continued his attack, expecting a rather humorous outcome with nothing exiting his opponent’s gaping beak.

A big mistake.

A Uranium Beam leapt forth into existence, burning at the MUTO’s throat and forcing him off as he wailed in both pain and shock. But how?! Why wasn’t this creature affected by his EMP? How come his breath weapon remained, let alone at its same intensity? Was there nothing electrical in nature about it? Such a question would never be answered as Rodan continued to fire, pushing the predatory Titan until he began to near the edge of the mountain. The male MUTO howled in painful defiance as he dug his feet into the ground, attempting to keep himself from falling off as he tanked the continuous blast that seared into his torso.

The mutant Pteranodon took a moment to cut off his heat ray when both Mothra and Radon zoomed diagonally out of the sky and crashed in the middle of the battlefield before quickly taking flight once more; Mothra soaring into the heavens with Radon hot on her tail like a heat-seeking torpedo.

Certain his mate could handle the Queen of the Monsters on her own for the time being, Rodan turned back towards the male MUTO, who was beginning to circle around the edges of the mountain, fixing him with a hunter’s gaze. But Rodan merely growled an earth-rattling rumble in reply, unafraid of the prehistoric cretin. Rising to his full height, Rodan spread his wings and a powerful cackle boomed from his bony muzzle, daring the winged amphibian to come at him. His ploy worked, and the MUTO reared up like a horse with an otherworldly cry, flailing his arms before charging at him in a straight line. Yellow eyes narrowing, Rodan growled and rushed to meet him.

The two Kaiju neared one another in but two seconds–and just as they were about to collide, the male MUTO raised his right claw and lashed out.

And yet, at the exact same time, Rodan jutted upwards and clasped the MUTO by the shoulders, talons digging deep. He was not fully able to avoid the MUTO’s claw as it slashed against his less armored side, drawing a spurt of blood, but Rodan ignored the pain and began to fly as quickly as his muscles would allow. And at this moment, there was only one direction he was planning to go.

Up.

Flapping his great wings at breakneck speeds, the Giant Monster of the Skies soared towards the heavens with unmatched grace while his quarry thrashed and bellowed vainly in his taloned clutches. Flapping his own wings, the male MUTO howled in defiance as he tried to slow Rodan’s ascent and break free, but the mutant Pteranodon would have none of it and continued to rise into the highest levels of the ozone layer with his monstrous cargo in tow. Only until he had broken completely through the clouds did Rodan finally begin to slow his flight, making sure to keep himself steady as his prey continued to thrash about in his grasp.

The male MUTO roared angrily and managed to slash one of his scythed limbs across Rodan’s leg, but the radioactive pterosaur ignored it.

The time was now.

A roar that caused the puffy gray clouds to part ever so slightly ripped from Rodan’s toothed beak as he flapped his wings, and like a seabird diving for prey he whizzed down at his top speed; the male MUTO’s wailing roar echoing through the heavens for miles as he was helplessly dragged down along with his captor.

*****

Mothra chirped as she soared between the largest buildings of Janjira, flapping her wings as she made way above the city. As if in response, a powerful form torpedoed upwards with a booming cackle before adjusting to the same height, revealing itself to be Radon. With spread talons and narrowed eyes, the brown Pteranodon gave chase after the moth goddess. The two flew about in their aerial game of cat-and-mouse until they reached the summit of Mt. Fuji once more, their silhouettes visible through the snowfall even from a considerable distance.

Mothra suddenly stopped in midair, positioning herself to face her saurian opponent. Knowing something was definitely amiss for her enemy to change tactics in such a way, Radon stopped a good sixty meters away from her, cawing sharply.

Flapping her wings forward, Mothra shocked the flying reptile out of her mind when she flung forth a spray of silk, entrapping her quicker than she could’ve anticipated! Radon thrashed and howled as she attempted to get the substance off of her, prying at it with her beak–which opened to expel a cry of surprise when Mothra tackled her out of the sky. At first, the two fell in free-fall together, with Mothra holding tightly to her foe’s torso as she scratched away at her face. But as Mothra raised one of her arms to slash again, Radon flapped her wings and jerked to the side, ending the fall. Still, Mothra remained clasped to her body–but Radon wasn’t done yet.

Reaching forward with her beak, the angry pterosaur bit down on one of Mothra’s chitinous limbs and yanked, pulling it off!

Wisps of vapor streaked from Mothra’s gaping mandibles as she screeched her agony to the cold air, buying Radon just the time she needed to clap her wings together and produce a shockwave that knocked the wounded insect away. Capitalizing on the turning of tables, Radon dove after her injured quarry with the prowess of a World War II fighter plane. Before Mothra even reached halfway to the ground, Radon had dive-bombed the lepidopteran Titan and dug her talons into her small body with ease. The Queen of the Monsters cried out in pain from the force of the strike–but despite her predicament she was not out of the competition yet.

She still had tricks to play.

Summoning her inner bioluminescence, Mothra released a war cry as she unleashed her God Rays point-blank at her captor, causing her to shut her eyes and recoil away with an anguished cackle, thus releasing her grip. Now, it was Mothra’s turn to capitalize on an open opportunity! Rearing her abdomen backwards, she flew forward as she prepared to drive her most formidable melee weapon into Radon’s scaly flesh–only to recoil in pain once more when Radon’s Uranium Heat Beam scorched her thorax.

Taking a brief moment to stay apart, the two giants screeched their signature battle cries at one another as they faced off, flapping their wings. Circling one another like aerial gladiator participants, each one fixed the other with a hard, fearless stare. Daring the other to make the next move. The world below them felt wide and truly endless as they hovered far above it; unaware of the countless human eyes that fixed them with distant gazes of awe as they too waited for one to strike the other and thus resume the titanic duel. Mothra chirped her angelic cry at her pterosaurian rival, her multifaceted eyes seemingly boring into her soul like the eyes of a divine dragonfly. But Radon glared back even more fiercely, her insectoid foe’s reflection mirroring off the surface of her flaring yellow eyes. If Mothra’s gaze had been a lance boring into her soul, then Radon’s glare sent one that all but split said nonexistent lance in half and burned a hole straight through her own.

Radon broke the orderly face-off by firing off a burst of her Uranium Heat Beam, a blast of which Mothra swung to the right to avoid while suffering a minorly scorched right wing. The Goddess of Infant Island flung another blast of silk–and this one managed to score a direct hit on the pterosaur’s face. Radon tried to shriek in defiance, but amidst her confusion Mothra seized the opportunity and tackled her out of the air. As the two combatants fell in a diagonal streak towards the slope of Mt. Fuji, Mothra wasted no time and thrust her most formidable weapon forward–burying her stinger a third of the way into Radon’s stomach. Beneath the haze of silk, the Pteranodon’s eyes shot wide open with pain. Instinctively, a Uranium Heat Beam leaped from her beak and scorched Mothra’s neck, burning the silk covering her face and sending the combatants crashing in separate impacts on the mountain. As Mothra shook herself off and began to right herself, Radon felt herself shake as blood dripped from her torso.

Her legs shaking as she struggled to stay standing, Radon lumbered towards the moth goddess, attempting to take her out while she was weak. But Mothra had gotten to her feet already–and was spreading her wings, preparing to take flight once more. And the pterosaur knew exactly where she would head.

So Radon acted fast.

Just as Mothra had lifted off the ground, Radon fired her Uranium Heat Beam straight into her right wing, searing a hole straight through it. Mothra shrieked in pain as she fell back, beginning to lose altitude. Fear for her unborn infant’s life fueling her resolve, Radon fired a second beam that struck Mothra’s thorax, sending the goddess flying rearward and crashing on her back close to Behemoth’s fallen body.

The Queen of the Monsters cried out weakly, once, as she just barely managed to roll herself over before falling to her stomach from exhaustion.

As Radon stumbled about trying to keep her footing, a faint ringing noise entered her ears–distant and mighty. Both her and Mothra, despite the respective wounds each had sustained, managed to look up as they spotted an object break through the snow-laden clouds above. The object looked like an asteroid, fiery and rocketing towards the earth at nearly the speed of sound. But midway to its impact, the object suddenly split in half; one half broke off diagonally, where it suddenly broke into a straight flight mere feet above the water’s surface and zoomed away into the distance, vanishing in seconds. The other kept falling, until it struck the earth a mere two hundred meters from the Janjira Power Plant with an earth-shuddering BOOM!

When the clouds of snow, dust and earth finally cleared and the quakes died down, the dying debris revealed the burnt, broken body of the male MUTO.

Radon turned her head to the ocean, crying out for her mate. Call after call assailed the heavens in a familiar, yearning chorus as the female pterosaur begged for her beloved to respond, hoping against hope that her mate would heed her calls and break from the water’s surface in short order. But no matter how many of her mournfully frightened cries graced the cold air in large wisps of frosty vapor, not a single reply from that familiar voice that she knew so well echoed back.

The only response she got was one that she would’ve given anything not to hear.

Her body half drenched in a sheet of red due to her fresh scars, the female MUTO howled a ghostly wail of malevolent intentions towards the lone pterosaur, the biological visor that acted as her eyes flaring the brightest shade of crimson Radon had ever seen. A testament to her wrath; she knew her mate was dead. And now, she would give a vicious payback. Pawing the ground with her right back leg, she shook her head and screamed her death chant at Radon, lowering herself as she prepared to charge. Despite her deteriorated condition, Radon spread her wings and roared back at the scythe-limbed amphibian, showing no fear in the face of doom.

The alpha of the MUTO species roared her denouncement to the cinnamon pterodactyloid before charging at her full speed.

A powerful whistling began to rapidly increase in volume, causing the MUTO’s head to turn to her right–and had her eyes possessed lids, they wouldn’t have even had time to widen in the slightest before the fiery object rammed into her at full, unfathomable force. Four tree trunk-like limbs snapped off like twigs, elephantine flesh harder than diamond broke asunder in a gruesome burst, an entire ribcage and lower neck vertebrae shattered like weakened glass as internal organs were either misshapen or punctured by the broken bones. Radioactive blood shed in great rivers to stain the snowy earth with a crimson warpaint as the female MUTO’s broken body flew like a pinball, crashing through the largest building of Janjira before skidding to a halt in the middle of the great ghost city.

Her surprise attacker didn’t hesitate.

Seeing nothing but red in his blinding rage, Rodan had cleared the distance between him and the crippled predator in less than a second and a half. The once powerful queen MUTO barely managed to groan one last time as Rodan grabbed her by the jaws with his talons and hoisted her off the ground with little effort. The radioactive amphibian wanted to fight back, but she was broken beyond all movement as Rodan held her upwards, flapping his wings. As her groan came to an end, the furious pterosaur yanked her jaws open and, while still hovering a short fifty meters off the ground, shot his Uranium Heat Beam down the MUTO’s throat in a kiss that was anything but benevolent.

He never stopped firing until the MUTO’s body fell back to the ground, her skull no longer attached to her shoulders.

Throwing the nucleovore’s disembodied head aside like an afterthought, Rodan finally allowed himself to set down upon the frozen earth, at last able to take a small break. Quickly, the crimson Pteranodon made way to his injured mate, nuzzling her protectively. Radon grumbled gently in reply, a simple sign she was okay.

With that taken care of, the Giant Monster of the Skies let his gaze wander, checking over the results of the conflict. Both MUTOs were dead–their broken corpses were now destined to be more ghostly relics like the very city their mountain kingdom ruled. The Skullcrawler was dead as dead can be–he lay at the foot of the mountain sprawled in a pool of blood that stained the once-white snow. Behemoth lay prone a fair distance away from the Rodan pair, a rather large gash bleeding from his forehead. Bad burns stained his gigantic body, and even if he was still breathing it didn’t look like that would be the case for much longer. And then, of course, there was Mothra. The last threat still standing.

Both Pteranodons glared molten daggers at the injured Queen of the Monsters, their hatred eclipsing all logic at this point. She had orchestrated this entire attack, had attempted to bring forth an entire legion of Titans to kill them and destroy their unborn offspring, all because Rodan had bested their king in combat. In most circumstances, Rodan would give a fallen rival a chance to flee for its life when it fell in defeat. He had tried to do so with Godzilla, but the so-called ‘King of the Monsters’ had ignored his warnings, which then led to his death. Rodan didn’t need to rely on cognitive thought to know that circumstances were different here, that Mothra was too great a threat to merely chase off. If she escaped with her life, there was a very good chance she would pull another stunt like this, and the threat would start all over again.

A chance that, for the sake of their child, the Rodans weren’t going to take.

Rising up to her full height best she could, Mothra chirped defiantly as she spread her wings and shone with bioluminescence, flaring the eye-like markings on her patterns. A sure intimidation display–and a sign that she wasn’t backing down. The Rodans cackled thunderously at her in a wrathful unison, intent on fatally punishing the goddess for the attempt on their lives. Glaring at one another, they tensed to spring…

Out in the distance, a cerulean light suddenly flashed into existence through the thick snowfall, catching the attention of all three titans. An aqua-blue beam of light was being fired into the sky, lighting up the clouds with a spectacular display of color the likes of which Rodan had never seen. And as the mutant Pteranodon tried to make out the source of the skybound beam, his binocular gaze could just barely make out a shape below it, as if something was firing the beam into the sky. Something massive.

The brilliant light show faded, and all in the distance was obscured by snow once more. But Rodan stayed alert, his eyes narrowing as he continued to stare nervously into the snowfall. That phenomenon had occurred somewhere out at sea, and he could’ve sworn something about it felt dreadfully familiar. As Rodan stared out through the frostfall, Mothra suddenly chirped loudly and flapped her wings, flying somewhat weakly away from the irradiated pterosaurs as she managed to soar upwards and perch herself on the tallest building in Janjira she could find. And she merely stood there unmoving–as if she waited for something. Or someone…?

A powerful roar cracked through the audible field for miles, causing both Pteranodons to freeze with fear. Radon widened her yellow eyes, for this sound was completely alien to her–but Rodan tensed as his blood ran cold, for he knew that sound all too well…

A lumbering shape was beginning to emerge from the mask of falling snow, the ground reverberating with its powerful footsteps. Rodan growled viciously at the approaching shape as he stood in front of his mate, nudging her with his snout, silently telling her to get back to the nest quickly. Radon began to walk back up the slope as quickly as her legs would allow, while Rodan stood firm as he prepared to confront his old rival for the second time.

His old wounds now nothing but faded scars, his maple leaf-shaped dorsal plates glowing with newfound power, Godzilla blew all the snow in front of him away with another earth-shaking roar. In the wake of his infamous battle cry, a chorus of loud cheers began to erupt from the distant Tokyo as countless civilians watching the battle rejoiced; the King of the Monsters still lived! After months of disappearance, months of debate whether or not he had survived his great battle with the Giant Monster of the Skies, the answer had finally revealed itself in full glorious fashion. His flaring eyes fixed Rodan with a deadly glare, his nostrils snorting wisps of vapor and his upper lip curled to bear his tyrannosaur-like teeth–and then he mentally recoiled when Rodan’s gaze met his own, a chill going down his spine. Godzilla read that stare like a book, the pterosaur’s eyes speaking a thousand crystal-clear words simply with that look alone.

Yes, Godzilla did remember what happened last time they met.

For a moment, the two vengeful rivals simply glared one another down, voicing their hatred for one another with their eyes single-handedly as the colossal dinosaur waded inland, his clawed feet striking the beach with a fall that sounded akin to a thunderclap. Then Godzilla’s eyes spotted the female, crawling up the mountain’s length as she made way towards what was surely their nest. And if that was their nest…

A chirp from Mothra informed him of everything he needed to know, and Godzilla’s eyes widened–before they furrowed into a lethal glower. Oh, no. No, no, NO! One mutant Rodan was too much for the world to allow, his previous battle had seen to that; two of them were potential mass Titan-killers. But an entire species?

Godzilla looked about, seeing the fallen bodies of his subjects. Among them, he noticed the broken corpses of the MUTOs. Seeing what remained of his natural rivals made him externally growl in fury, while internally gasping in shock. MUTOs were powerful adversaries, enough to even give him a decent amount of trouble when he saw to it that they didn’t overrun the world and turn it into a giant predatory hunting ground. To see them as nothing more than shattered images of their former selves at the hands of the Rodans gave him a new sense of urgency. Two Rodans–merely two–had done all of this. And now they were reproducing? Trying to make more? Godzilla growled fiercely as he began his march to battle. A species of these Rodans would be downright apocalyptic, worse than a MUTO swarm. No Titan would be able to withstand such a force.

Furthermore, there was another reason they couldn’t be allowed to live: Rodan was a false king. A thief to the throne, HIS throne. He had not only stolen his rightful position as Alpha, not only had he disrupted the natural hierarchy and balance of things, but now he had sired an heir? And a false one at that? Another thief to the throne? They had to die, there was no question–and the egg had to be destroyed.

It was the law of nature, the only guarantee that life will carry on.

Godzilla’s fearsome roar was subsequently answered by a defiant cackle from Rodan. This overly territorial beast was no ‘king’ to him! Rodan didn’t care what kind of reputation Godzilla held across the world, didn’t care that all other Kaiju on earth seemed to respond and submit to his every whim; Rodan bowed to no one. Answered to no one. And he was more than happy to remain defiant in the face of this damned dinosaur’s rule so long as he remained this petty. But worse still, this creature’s pride and self-righteousness was so high that not only was Rodan seemingly not allowed to defend himself and his territory from him, not only was Rodan not allowed to even exist in his eyes, but apparently it was the end of the world to Godzilla if the Monster of the Skies settled down to raise a family.

It was this fact that made Rodan’s blood nearly ignite with rage. A fallen king who couldn’t take a loss had come back to murder him and his family all because of a dent in his pride, and was willing to unleash his entire kingdom upon them to accomplish it. And goodness knows whether or not this was going to be the only time such an attack like this would take place. Rodan screamed in rage knowing what he and his family were up against at this point. Why were the creatures of this world so spiteful? Why couldn’t they leave him alone? Why couldn’t he just be allowed to live in peace?

Rodan took a step forward, rearing his wings back as he prepared to enter what he knew would be the final battle. It was time to settle the score once and for all.

The King of the Monsters threw his head forward, his jaws gaping open to expel a screeching war cry to inform the crimson Pteranodon that his false reign was at an end. The Giant Monster of the Skies responded with a booming cackle that blew half the snow off the mountain like cobwebs off stone, promising the same outcome as the last time they had fought.

Godzilla bent down and barreled into a charge, roaring at his top volume as he sprinted with the intention of ending this threat once and for all.

Rodan kicked off the ground, shrieking equally as loud as he flew to meet the nuclear dinosaur with no intention of dodging or evading.

Their collision blew the snow off even the farthest, oldest, longest-abandoned buildings.

The two giants tore madly into each other as if it had been their life’s dream. Crunching jaws and powerful claws bit and rended at armored skin red as fire and brimstone, all the while a dagger beak and glinting talons stabbed and jabbed into timber gray scales seemingly old as time itself. Powerful wings far stronger than they looked flapped about as they beat into Godzilla’s face and torso, but the Monster King brought his own secondary melee weapon into play when he turned about face and smacked Rodan in the chest with his mighty tail. Despite falling, the mutated pterosaur was back on his feet in short order, fighting back against the resurrected Alpha Predator every bit as viciously as he had before.

Godzilla grabbed winged saurian by the shoulders, claws digging deep. Rodan lashed out and began to peck the nuclear giant in the face in reply, but the attack came to a halt when Godzilla whirled around and charged, headed straight into the city of Janjira. Rodan shrieked as he was bashed through a rather large building. Amidst the falling shower of glass and steel, Rodan was buried up to his chest upon being thrown to the ground. As the irradiated Pteranodon cackled in rage, Godzilla lifted his foot and stomped down on his avian brow. Roaring his vengeance to his unnatural rival, Godzilla lifted his foot once more and stomped it down on the debris covering Rodan’s chest, trying to bury him further.

Rodan burst free of the debris with a shrieking scream, exerting enough force to trip Godzilla up and send him falling on his side with a surprised bellow. Without hesitation, the Monster of the Skies pounced upon Godzilla like a hawk on a rat. Curved talons pierced his gray flesh to stain the ground around them red, while Rodan instantly set to pecking new, fresh scars into the saurian’s hide with his beak. Godzilla lashed out with an arm to bat the pterosaur away, actually managing to hit him across the face with a lucky swipe, but this only enraged Rodan. With a yelping cry, the flying reptile lunged in and pierced a clean, bloody hole through Godzilla’s arm!

Howling with agonized fury at the strike, Godzilla summoned his legendary strength and pushed back off the ground just as Rodan retracted and held back. The dorsal-plated dinosaur lashed out and managed to slash Rodan across the chest with his hand, but only elicited a shower of sparks from the hit. Unfortunately for him, Rodan didn’t hold back any longer; the Giant Monster of the Skies lunged forth and clamped his talons deep into both sides of Godzilla’s neck in small bursts of red. The King of the Monsters shrieked in urgency, remembering how efficiently Rodan had exploited his major weakness last time, and instinctively proceeded to grab the pterosaur’s legs in his clawed hands. The mutant Pteranodon tried to rake his talons forth, to rend the Alpha Predator’s gills; but Godzilla pushed against them just as hard, stalling such a gruesome assault.

So Rodan improvised.

Yanking his upper body upwards whilst flapping his wings, Rodan laboriously lifted the bellowing Monster King a clear two hundred meters off the ground. As the Permian predator kicked and thrashed in an attempt to escape the pterosaur’s grasp, Rodan summoned all his strength to perform a strained loop, and only when he and his quarry were facing the direction of the earth upside-down did he push forth and yank, slamming Godzilla head-first back to the ground with a powerful quake.

Godzilla’s groan of pain rumbled through the pits of the earth’s crust as he raised his head off the ground, but was quickly put back down with a screech when Rodan descended upon him like a falcon. However, Godzilla was not one to remain down to very long; the King of the Monsters lashed out with his long, segmented tail and knocked Rodan off like a baseball, sending him crashing through a small array of houses nearby. Wasting no time, the Alpha Predator was back on his feet in seconds, shaking his head with a mighty grunt. Rodan cawed sharply at Godzilla, lunging without a moment’s hesitation–and loosed a cry of frustration when Godzilla’s mighty atomic ray surged from his gaping jaws to strike his chest, forcing him back in a continuous blast. The winged reptile dug his talons into the old concrete as he slid back from the force of the radioactive blast, leaving massive trenches in his wake, enduring the full intensity of Godzilla’s most formidable weapon before it finally came to a halt.

With distance put between them, Godzilla took a brief moment to gaze upon Rodan’s torso–and sure enough, the results were the same as last time. Small burnt splotches, nothing serious. Even being more powerful than it already was last time they fought, his atomic ray still wasn’t enough to deal any real injury. If he was gonna beat him, he would have to do so through more physical methods.

Godzilla began to charge–but stopped and backed off wisely when Rodan blasted him in the side of the neck with his Uranium Heat Beam, dangerously close to his gills. As Godzilla ceased his sprint and took a few steps back, he was fixed with yet another threatening, almost gloating gaze from the enraged Pteranodon. More flashbacks.

Godzilla internally swore he would break Rodan’s remains apart with his bare hands after burning his corpse to the ground before the night was over.

A blinding light overtook the playing field, one that made Rodan’s nerves snap with recognition. Instinctively he flapped his wings and took to the air just as Mothra came barreling in on his position. Cursing the lepidopteran deity, Rodan screeched angrily at her as he took a moment to hover, telling her to stay out of this. The giant moth responded by firing a jet of silk which instantly webbed Rodan to the nearest building. Cackling furiously, the winged reptile pushed and strained against the steel-like bindings that constricted him, but try as he may the silk was far more durable than it looked and would not snap.

A pair of familiar roars seized his attention.

Looking up just in time to see both Godzilla and Mothra barreling at him as one, the Giant Monster of the Skies could only cackle in frustration as both slammed into him, sending him crashing through the shattered building with little effort.

With the timing of a striking praying mantis, Mothra pounced onto Rodan’s chest mere inches from his face. As the pterosaur opened his mouth to roar his primal insults to her, the insectoid goddess slashed him across the face with her razor-edged forelimbs, eliciting showers of sparks as well as a cackle of surprise. But as Mothra reared her stinger upwards in preparation to stab her saurian foe, Rodan reacted just a second faster and lunged forth, smashing his beak into the moth’s forehead and sending her recoiling away with a painful chirp. Godzilla roared at this atrocity and lunged forth, but Rodan clapped his wings together to produce another sonic boom that did well to stop the Monster King in his tracks just long enough for Rodan to get back to his feet. But as he stood, his opponents charged together a second time, and Rodan’s eyes widened as he tensed to react–

–and, for the second time in this battle, Radon intervened.

The female Pteranodon flew past Godzilla, pummeling him with her shockwaves while also slashing off a sizable portion of his scaly flesh with her chest-spikes. But she didn’t stop there; cawing viciously, the brown pterosaur collided with Mothra and knocked her off-course, engaging her in battle a second time. The cinnamon saurian lunged forth with her beak agape, but Mothra slashed her across the face and thus forced her to let go. After taking a brief moment to stand off in midair, shrieking bloody murder at one another, the aerial combatants lunged in and began to tear into each other in what was to be their own final conflict.

Rodan roared for his mate to be careful–and reacted too late to the booming of approaching footfalls as Godzilla rushed him like a sumo wrestler, tackling him off his feet. The King of the Monsters lunged in for a bite, but his jaws snapped on nothing but empty air as Rodan veered his head to the right and avoided a painful wound. Again Godzilla lunged, but the mutant Pteranodon saw to it his attack yielded the same result. Grabbing the flying reptile by the neck with one hand, Godzilla held him still as he lunged forth for a third bite–

–only to bellow in pain when Rodan’s Uranium Heat Beam scorched his face. Not even giving his enemy a full second to recoil, Rodan lunged forth and plunged his beak into Godzilla’s right set of gills!

Godzilla’s eyes widened from a hybrid mix of searing agony and horrific flashbacks, which only worsened when Rodan jutted his beak to the side and effectively ripped it free of the nuclear dinosaur’s weak spot. Acting quickly, Rodan clapped his wings once more, producing a shockwave that not only ripped through Godzilla’s colossal form but also propelled him safely out of the Monster King’s grasp.

He knew he needed to be careful so as to not end up in that situation again.

At the same time, Godzilla was also taking time for a breather, clutching the right side of his neck with one hand. He hadn’t forgotten how durable, tactful, strong, and unbelievably fast his mutated foe was; but even here at round two, having memorized his foe’s different attack patterns in their previous battle, Godzilla was already having yet another hard time beating him. And already sooner, had the terrible pterosaur inflicted some potentially major wounds to his most vulnerable area. He too, needed to play his cards safer than he had last time if he wanted to end the threat this beast posed to the world.

Godzilla reared to his full height and began to illuminate his dorsal plates in a bright intimidation display, booming infrasonic rumbles from his closed jaws all the while. Rodan rumbled back as he spread his wings and beat them once, a return show of strength. A strong wind blew over Godzilla as the ground shook lightly under his feet, but he only continued to stare the winged reptile down with vengeful eyes.

Both Kaiju lunged for one another, meeting in yet another booming collision of towering bodies, slashing claws and gnashing jaws. Crunching his jaws down on Rodan’s throat, Godzilla tried to secure a firm grip on the pterosaur’s wings, but Rodan’s survival instincts kicked in and he reacted just as fast. Flapping his wings together, he produced yet another sonic boom that made Godzilla relinquish his toothy grasp. But as quickly as he recoiled, Godzilla lashed out with one claw to grab Rodan by the face, and with a trumpeting scream threw his arm downward and smashed the Pteranodon face-first into the pavement. Godzilla lashed out a foot, but Rodan powered his wings forth and flew forward at what seemed like the speed of sound, tripping Godzilla and sending him crashing on his side.

Not a second’s worth passed before Rodan was back on Godzilla, screaming like an enraged Wildman. Godzilla lashed out and batted the pterosaur across the face with a fist–and was punished severely for it when Rodan grabbed him by the head with his talons, lifted him up, and smashed his face into the pavement just like Godzilla had done to him not fifteen seconds ago.

As Rodan leaped backward behind the Alpha Predator, Godzilla’s tail lashed out like a striking cobra; but this time the Monster of the Skies saw it coming. Jutting his head forward like a bird, Rodan caught the end of the lengthy appendage in his beak and began to yank and tug on it. As Rodan shook the appendage in his mouth like a dog, Godzilla’s screaming head jerked and thrashed about, looking as if his head movements were accommodating with the Pteranodon’s actions.

But eventually, too much became too much, and Godzilla yanked his tail sideways with all the strength its muscles would allow, tearing it free of Rodan’s toothed beak. As Rodan’s bony jaws snapped on thin, cold air, Godzilla thrust his tail in the opposite direction and clocked his winged rival upside the head, sending him skidding a good distance back. With a vengeful roar, Godzilla pushed himself back to his feet.

Godzilla’s own survival instincts took over when he heard the faintest hint of a ringing sound in his ears that could only mean one thing, and he reacted accordingly. Thrusting himself back down, he allowed Rodan to whizz right over his head just as his dorsal plates cut a nasty tear in the pterosaur’s left wing, eliciting a screech of pain as Rodan turned about and crashed painfully on his feet a good seventy meters away, facing Godzilla as he got back to his feet. The Giant Monster of the Skies cursed himself as he held his ground, noting to avoid those spines for future reference.

Godzilla sneered, grateful to have finally found a weakness he could exploit to his advantage.

Rodan stomped the ground, booming a threatening cackle at the prehistoric dinosaur. Godzilla roared at him, telling him to come get some. A notion that Rodan was quick to respond to, as he stomped towards him in a rage. Godzilla ducked just as Rodan attempted to peck his face, and with gaping jaws lunged up at him like an alligator. Though Rodan too, was quick to back up and evade such a strike. But the Monster King was not a stranger to improvising; throwing his body forward in a swinging motion, Godzilla hit Rodan with the full force of his 99,600-ton body in a powerful body slam that sent the pterosaur reeling. A few of his chest spikes stabbed small wounds into Godzilla in the process, but the Alpha Predator ignored it for now. Bellowing fiercely, the King of the Monsters suddenly ducked low and spun on his heels, whirling a full 360 degrees and smacking Rodan in the throat with his tail. As Rodan stepped back with a half-gag, Godzilla spun back around a second time, this time clocking the Monster of the Skies across the head.

Godzilla’s dorsal plates began to light up in rapid succession, the loud hum of the building nuclear energy in his gut rumbling like thunder as he reared up to puff out his chest, and before Rodan could dodge or take flight the Monster King let loose his heat ray. The pyroclastic flow of atomic radiation struck the mutant Pteranodon in his wounded wing, and due to its weakened state, the wing did not fully resist the beam’s effects this time, and a small hole was thus burned through the leathery limb. A cackle of pained defiance roared forth from the winged reptile’s beak as he stood strong, digging his talons into the ground from heightened rage as his horns crackled to life with an amber light.

Godzilla moved the heat ray back to Rodan’s torso, letting it burn and push against the pterosaur’s body for a truly impressive eleven seconds before finally cutting it off–and barely had time to brace himself when Rodan retaliated with his Uranium Beam. Godzilla shrilled in pain as he held his arms up to block the heat ray from searing into his gills, and thus was forced to endure the full furious intensity of it burning his arms and hands to the bone. But as Godzilla bellowed defiantly at his winged oppressor, Rodan suddenly cut off his attack!

It didn’t take him so much as a second to figure out why.

Howling loud enough to shatter all glass in the vicinity, Rodan flew at Godzilla with talons spread, plunging them into the dinosaur’s ancient flesh as he took him off his feet.

*****

As two kings squared off in the midst of the long-abandoned kingdoms of man, meanwhile, their respective queens threw down high above the dominions of nature. Time and time again they flew past one another, striking powerful blow after blow that repeatedly blasted the sound barrier in the kneecaps like an auditory shotgun, always before separating and circling around before rushing in for yet another go. Booming war cries added on to the thunderous chorus of traded blows as the winged giants duked it out with everything they had, refusing to hold back.

It was a spectacle worthy of ancient artist paintings.

Their monolithic silhouettes loomed through the haze of falling snow as they clashed in the cold, the very flaps of their wings blowing hundreds of the frozen particles out of their paths as if they didn’t exist. Their cries blew forth clouds of vapor larger than the biggest hotel buildings while rattling the island of Japan to its core with sheer volume alone; a half-sided chorus of angelic chirps and prehistoric screeches that mixed together to create a terrifying, alien choir that screamed at the top of its lungs like the souls of ten thousand angry spirits.

Shouting their individual war cries as loud as they possibly could, they rocketed through the air dead-set on one another like organic F-22 Raptors to collide with yet another mountain-rattling quake.

Radon’s teeth punctured the furry chitin of Mothra’s shoulder in a vice-like grip, before she jutted back when the lepidopteran deity responded by slashing her in the face with her claws. Mothra flapped her wings and powered back, igniting her inner bioluminescence as she shone her God Rays upon the cinnamon pterosaur. Screeching angrily, Radon merely shut her eyes as she flapped her wings and began to circle around again, making sure to open them as she felt herself beginning to head in the moth’s direction.

Her eyes narrowed but did not fully shut as she zoomed towards her insectoid quarry, intent on keeping Mothra within her sights–though, the Goddess of Infant Island had a little surprise attack in mind.

The irradiated Pteranodon took less than three seconds to near her, and when she was but exactly fifty meters in front of her Mothra ejected another silk spray–and was met with a rather nasty shock when Radon clapped her sings to shoot upwards like a rocket, leaving behind a sonic boom that pummeled the moth goddess and tore her silk spray apart before it could even land on her target!

Feeling her fur-covered chitin crack from the might of the blow, the arthropodic Titan chirped in pain and made quickly to back off, keeping the flying reptile in her field of vision as said Kaiju began to fly downwards, seemingly making her way towards her. Mothra prepared for an oncoming strike, but changed to merely standing her ground when Radon stopped a good eighty meters away, staring her down as the two combatants took a few seconds to circle one another.

Such a display did not last very long before they lunged like maddened snakes and met in close quarters combat yet again.

Chitinous forearms and bird-like talons of bone clashed and slashed against one another like biological swords in a fierce duel of edged melee weaponry, every now and then one managing to deliver a sizable cut or nick to the other; but so far, neither Kaiju could deal a fatal blow. Radon sought to change that and spread her wings back, preparing to clap them together when Mothra shot upwards, thus avoiding the resulting sonic boom. As Radon turned to look up, Mothra pounced upon her avian skull with a mighty chirp. Thrusting her stinger forward, the angelic arthropod attempted to strike the terrifying pterosaur in a vital area, but only succeeded in grazing it against her beak in showers of sparks.

Mothra suddenly flapped her wings and leaped off, while at the same time firing yet another silk spray upon Radon’s face!

The enraged Pteranodon flapped her wings madly as she shook her head, eliciting high-pitched trumpets through her closed beak as she attempted to scream, but her mouth was clamped too tightly shut and her vision enshrouded by white. She could literally feel the moth goddess stalking her, preparing to make her move, and Radon began to freak out. Her fear giving way to boosting her survival instincts into overdrive, the brown-colored pterosaur began to fly in random directions at her top speed, while every now and then shaking her head and pressing with all the strength in her beak in an attempt to breach the shade of steel-hard material.

And then her horns crackled to life.

Taking a second to shoot upwards with a sonic boom just to make sure Mothra didn’t take her by surprise, Radon pried her beak open as far open as the ever-so-slightly weakening silk would allow, and spat forth her Uranium Heat Ray. The very moment the violet river of atomic energy burned through the organic net, Radon shook her skull free of whatever remained at last.

Her eyes widened at what she saw next.

*****

Mothra touched down upon the center of Mt. Fuji at last, her objective right in front of her. A tired exhale exited her mandibles as she slowly lumbered towards the shelled sphere that had been up to this point so fiercely guarded by the Rodan pair, not able to move any faster due to the full extent of her injuries catching up to her. Behind her, Radon screamed bloody murder as she flew and thrashed about through the air, trying in vain to rid herself of Mothra’s trap while the Queen of the Monsters now set to ending the pterosaurs’ whole career.

Another fearful, agonized rumble echoed from the distant Radon, temporarily catching the goddess’s attention as she watched her struggle through her current predicament. Even in spite of the bindings that constricted her, Radon was fighting with every inch of her being to break free. Every movement looked powered by sheer single-minded will to break loose of her bindings, every shake of her head and attempted scream put forth will all her strength as she fought against odds stacked against her. Seeing this, Mothra turned back to the egg, taking a moment to simply look at it.

She thought this task would be easy once she got around to it. She thought destroying the false king’s progeny and thus ending his bloodline before it even began would be as simple as throwing a rock. But now that she was here, now that she took a moment to look upon the shelled womb of the unborn child, Mothra found herself contemplating whether or not what she was doing was even right.

Deep behind the shell of the egg, the Goddess of Infant Island could feel the tiny presence of the infant Pteranodon stirring within, like a baby stirring in a nightmare. Mothra swore the possibility that she could even hear the slumbering baby coo a disturbed cry, as if in fright of the loud commotion occurring in the outside world. Mothra’s eyes would’ve widened ever the slightest if they could have as she stared at the egg, her gaze seemingly boring into the shell to look upon the unseen child.

So small. So fragile. So… innocent.

Mothra stepped shakily away, suddenly unsure of how to proceed. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t–

A maddened shriek nearly made her auditory receptors explode, and Mothra barely had time to turn so much as halfway around before a powerful form stabbed into her frail body at full furious might. One of the goddess’ legs was chopped off from the impact, chitin cracked open like an overripe melon. They were knocked off the ground and rocketing through thin air for a full second, Radon’s talons digging into Mothra’s already gaping new wounds with indescribable force as the enraged mother pecked and knifed at her head with relentless hate. The two suddenly collided against a rocky curve, Mothra taking the full brunt of the hit with a screech of pain.

Reacting out of instinct, Mothra’s stinger thrust around and managed to pierce straight through Radon’s left leg, eliciting a scream of pain from the pterosaur. Taking the opportunity, Mothra grabbed hold of the reptile’s head with her scythed limbs and wound herself around, placing herself riding atop Radon’s neck! The irradiated pterosaur shrieked as she began to thrash like a maddened bull–which suddenly cut off when a white-hot dagger of agony lanced through her back to protrude out her chest.

Had she been able to look down, she would’ve seen the end of Mothra’s stinger sticking mere inches out her torso.

Mothra panted with exhaustion as the pterosaur quivered on her stinger, blood beginning to froth from her gaping, twitching beak. A cold feeling of shock began to set in as Mothra took the time to comprehend what she had just done; what her actions had just brought upon the creatures she had beforehand considered enemies of Nature’s balance. In the beginning, Mothra had sought out the Rodans for the purpose of avenging the defeated King of the Monsters, Godzilla. She had sought them out in fear that they would throw the world she had sought to protect for millions of years into utter chaos, due to one of them having been enough to best the natural order’s greatest protector. When a king fell in battle, it would not be unusual for a Queen to seek to avenge him; to finish what her king had started, to fight the war he couldn’t. The threat of mutated monsters not awoken, but downright created by humanity’s nuclear abuse seemed too great a threat to ignore, so in Mothra and the other Titans’ minds it seemed destroying them was the only option.

And the Rodans had fought harder than she ever thought they could, with every fiber of strength they possessed to protect their unborn progeny. Mothra took a second to look to the side, where she could just barely make out the warring shapes of Godzilla and Rodan clashing amidst the ghost city of Janjira. Rodan was wailing on the Monster King in a rage, screaming angrily loud enough to crack the glass of airplanes potentially flying thousands of feet above. That wasn’t the behavior of a king trying to hold onto his power, attempting to defend his future heir and legacy.

That was the behavior of a father protecting his family.

Mothra’s head turned back to look at Radon, who’s beak had shakily managed to snap shut as a low grumble ululated in her throat, the impaled reptile attempting still to stay awake, to fight to the very last breath. A mother doing everything in her power to protect her precious child. Only in this moment did Mothra, Queen of the Monsters, the Goddess of Infant Island, finally see the true horrifying severity of her mistake; to see the true meaning of the fear in the creatures’ behavior when the battle wasn’t looking in their favor, to see the true motivator of their savagery in this fight to the finish.

Prior to this moment, Mothra had hoped that these creatures would be defeated quickly and simply; that she and the other Titans would see to it they were speedily destroyed, and their potentially destructive legacy wiped out before it even began. But now, in this moment, the Goddess of Infant Island hoped that these Rodans were as durable as the One Born of Fire himself, and that the blow she had just dealt to the female Pteranodon would be one she could recover from in time, just like–

A powerful cackle thundered from Radon’s beak as she suddenly thrust her head back as hard as her muscles would allow, impaling her crown of horns clean through Mothra’s chest and out her back.

The insect’s body quivered rapidly, her body going into a sudden state of shock. Her mandibles gaped open, but no sound came out, only a tiny wisp of vapor as the slightest hint of a breath managed to vent free from her suddenly ailing lungs. There was no question about what had just happened–Mothra was mortally wounded. She wasn’t going to make it. And yet, as her death seizure began to lessen in intensity and her shock began to be replaced with a strange sense of peace, she accepted it.

Personally, Mothra felt that, in many ways, she deserved it.

With all her might, Radon managed to swing her head sideways and throw Mothra off her horns, and sent the arthropodic goddess tumbling down the slopes of Mt. Fuji, her fall only coming to a stop when she landed right next to the prone body of one of her defeated allies: Behemoth. The once mighty mammoth lay sprawled pitifully on his stomach, a dark red stain encompassing nearly all the fur on his forehead and his trunk. Dried, frozen blood lay in a small patch on the ground in front of his nose, and yet despite the injuries that had taken him out of the battle, Mothra could just barely make out the slightest hint of a pulse from his seemingly unmoving body, confirming his status as alive.

Unlike their other allies.

Mothra, her body broken beyond any aid, slowly laid her head down to rest upon the snow that blanketed the ground. The Queen of the Monsters knew this would not be the end; Mothra was an immortal creature. She had died many times in the past, only to be reborn and return to the land of the living at some point in the future through a laid egg somewhere in the world. She had already created the egg needed for her inevitable return, shortly before her departure for this land.

As she lay dying in the contrasting snowfall, Mothra pondered over all that she had learned on this day, and what she would do when she returned to the world in the not too distant future. Today, Mothra had made a truly grave mistake: she had let her fear of the unknown mix with terrors of past experience to create a mental corruption of her own doing, which set her on a path that nearly made her no different from the evil of the very creatures that had created the Rodan pair, humanity.

By letting paranoia of beings she didn’t truly understand and vengeance for her thought-dead ally cloud her judgment, Mothra hadn’t even tried looking through another angle; hadn’t even tried clearing away the shade of first appearances to find the truth. She hadn’t even tried to understand the beings she found herself confronted by. She had rushed judgment before the defenders could be allowed to plead their case, and had relied on a darkness she didn’t even know existed to bring about the very thing she had been created to resist.

That would all change upon her return. She would remember today and her mistakes wrought, and upon her resurrection she would seek to better herself and learn from her flaws. Even a goddess like her wasn’t perfect, but Mothra accepted that fact with open arms. For in the end, the one true purpose in life was the very thing she represented: to grow. To be better. To learn from your faults and find ways to make up for them. The Goddess of Infant Island hoped that the Rodans would survive today, and if they did, she would see to it that they found solace in life so long as she remained breathing. Silently, she wished the irradiated Pteranodons–including her own killer–good luck, and laid her head down to pass.

Mothra died along with the darkness within her–but unlike the former, the latter would stay dead.

*****

Radon moaned in pain as she collapsed to the ground in a massive puff of snow, breathing heavily as she tried to move her weakening muscles. The hit she had taken had been a devastating one, and she didn’t know whether or not she was going to last today. As if the sting to her back hadn’t been bad enough, the queen of the skies could feel her leg losing feeling from the blood loss. Her eyes drooping open and closed as she shook her head, channeling all her strength into staying awake, Radon looked ahead and saw her most cherished object. The one thing that brought her more happiness in the world than anything else. The egg. It was safe.

Safe and sound.

With a bass rumble, the injured mother summoned her tested strength yet again despite the growing paralysis in her body from the effects of blood loss, and began to pull herself forward with her wings like a sea turtle. Moving gradually, but with truly powerful strokes fueled by the undying strength of a mother’s love, Radon inched meter by meter towards the egg, fighting harder than ever to resist the effects of blood loss just long enough to reach her unborn child. A minute felt like an hour to her exhausted mind before she finally reached the shelled orb and collapsed next to it with a rumbling sigh. With the last of her strength, the giant Pteranodon folded one wing over the egg like a blanket and tucked it against her side, cowled protectively under the membrane of skin as its mother rested, finally able to take a moment to simply relax and regain her strength. Deep, peaceful breaths escaped her beak in great clouds of frozen carbon dioxide as she rested, her gigantic body steadily beginning to lose the ache that graced her muscles.

*****

A roar 250 million years old mixed with an angry Late Cretaceous cackle as Rodan descended rapidly from above to plunge his talons into Godzilla’s monolithic body like an eagle catching a rodent, but despite the bleeding wounds the Monster King refused to fall so easily. Reaching out with one burnt arm, Godzilla snatched the irradiated Pteranodon by a leg and crunched down on it with all his strength. Rodan screeched an agonized wail to the heavens as blood frothed down the caught limb in small rivers, some even flooding Godzilla’s teeth, but through the haze of agony the Giant Monster of the Skies snapped back to reality and beat his wings against the Alpha Predator in a maddened fury, all the while pecking relentlessly at the dinosaur’s face with his beak.

Rodan was so engrossed in his rage, he noticed the rapid hum of Godzilla’s dorsal spines too late as an atomic ray exploded forth from his jaws, not only burning the weakened leg but striking Rodan in the bottom of his head and forcing him off. As Rodan reeled back, Godzilla fired a second blast onto his wing, keeping it going for a good seven seconds before ceasing. While the skin on the membraned appendage had burned, it had not seared a hole straight through the other side, much to Godzilla’s disappointment.

Rodan closed his eyes and winced in pain as he exerted too much pressure on his wounded leg, almost falling forward with a yelp. Slowly, he lifted his limb off the ground and planted it more softly, keeping steady as he stood as tall as he could on a shaking leg. Quivering breaths wisped from his beak as he held himself together, staring down the King of the Monsters with seething hate. The atomic dinosaur curled his bloody muzzle to reveal his razor-sharp teeth, his own eyes glaring a predatory scowl at the wounded Pteranodon.

He had tasted the winged reptile’s blood–and now he was emboldened to shed more.

Godzilla reared up, spines still aglow, and puffed out his chest. Rodan knew what this meant and presented his better-armored chest to take the oncoming hit–and was surprised when Godzilla suddenly ducked low and ran right at him like a Japanese sumo wrestler. But this time, Rodan was not willing to be caught in the saurian’s clutches again, and with an instinctual flap of his wings he darted into the air. He couldn’t have been a second earlier–as he flew up, an upward swipe of Godzilla’s claw managed to just barely graze his leg before he rose up out of harm’s reach.

Cackling mightily, the Giant Monster of the Skies began to flap his wings in quick succession, kicking up a strong current of hurricane-force winds which quickly began to thrash Godzilla. Digging his clawed feet into the cold earth, Godzilla held his injured hands up in front of his face as he tried to brave the makeshift storm, but the winds were getting stronger and Rodan showed no signs of stopping despite his own wounds. The King of the Monsters soon found himself struggling to breathe amidst the powerful gale that battered his ancient body; mostly from a mix of his injured gills, the force and speed of the winds, and pure fatigue from the battle. He tried to roar in defiance at the irradiated Pteranodon, but the winds blowing into his face nearly made him gag as his breath caught in his throat. His need to breathe exceeded all other needs as of this moment, Godzilla strained his prehistoric muscles and gradually turned around to face the direction of the winds; despite still struggling to stand, he was grateful when he finally inhaled a massive, albeit painful gulp of much-needed oxygen.

A Uranium Heat Beam struck the back of his head, causing him to grunt in pain and step forward. That pain would only amplify when a powerful body struck him from the burnt injury, sending him falling to one knee while his winged opponent flew overhead, too quickly for him to grab. A roaring shrill from Godzilla’s powerful jaws distorted the air as the radioactive dinosaur looked up to glare at Rodan, who turned about in midair to face him.

It didn’t take long for the crimson pterosaur to take a nosedive in Godzilla’s direction. Godzilla tensed up, waiting to see if his judgment of what Rodan was going to do was right. The moment he was but meters away from the Alpha Predator, Rodan suddenly clapped his wings and shot upwards to perform a loop. Godzilla reacted in less than a precious second, as Rodan looped around to hit him the Monster King swung his tail and knocked him clear out of the air like a baseball!

Rodan crashed hard onto the snowy earth, his injured leg scraping painfully against the icy concrete and causing him to scream as horrid pain shot through the injured limb. As Rodan tucked his leg inward with tightly shut eyes, they suddenly shot open when massive tremors began to grow in rapid intensity. He tried to shoot off the ground, but with a perfectly timed reach of one hand Godzilla caught his wounded leg in his grasp. As his thick claws curled and dug deep Rodan howled in distress before Godzilla suddenly yanked him to the side, smashing him into the ground with an impact that threatened to start a miniature earthquake. However, he didn’t let go, and with one hard movement he yanked upwards before turning over and thrusting the pterosaur to the ground with all his might. Again and again Godzilla battered his winged quarry with repeats of the same maneuver, venting his frustrations on the mutant with a righteous fury he had been building up for so long, until finally he yanked up one last time and slammed Rodan down on his chest.

The pterosaur wheezed from the impact and tried to get up, but a tail smack to the back of his head put him back down. A groan of agony reverberated from Rodan’s throat as he lay prone before his saurian rival, who proceeded to lift a foot and stomp it down hard upon his back. As Godzilla pressed down with all his strength into the flying reptile’s spine, Rodan’s drooping eyes suddenly inched wider when a roar of an entirely different sort screamed across the heavens and entered his ears. One that did not belong to Godzilla, or his mate, or any of the other monsters he had fought today. But it was familiar, and one he remembered well…

His vision cleared a bit, just in time to witness an event that made even Godzilla temporarily stop in his tracks and look up. And the sight that befell Rodan’s tired eyes made them snap wide open with an indescribable terror.

An entire fleet of fighter jets flew overhead, whizzing quickly through the snow-laded sky and rocketing towards Mt. Fuji. There were at least two dozen of them, separated into two V-shaped formations–and amidst them, a plane that dwarfed them all in size. Massive and V-shaped, black as obsidian, it bellowed across the heavens as its smaller peers seemed to flock around it, following whatever commands its riders gave. To Rodan, it was an anomaly he had never seen before in his life–but Godzilla recognized that vehicle; he remembered it when he fought his three-headed arch-rival a year ago, assisting the King of the Monsters in his time of need.

The USS Argo and its smaller brethren zoomed over the mountain, circling around it once as they seemed to scope out the nest. Knowing what they were about to do, Rodan kicked and thrashed to life with a terrified cackle while Godzilla exerted more pressure into his back.

The Giant Monster of the Skies was helpless as, at once, the jets flew at the mountain a second time and opened fire on his cherished home–and, along with it, his beloved mate.

*****

Radon cackled in fearful misery as missiles began to bombard the mountain she called home, explosions dancing around her with horrid booms. She didn’t know how long it would take before she could regain enough strength to stand, but every second now felt like a year as humanity finally emerged from the shadows to strike back with their terrible weapons of mass destruction. Some of the missiles struck the paralyzed pterosaur, though did no damage whatsoever; the others blew flaming craters in her once beautiful residence.

But, deep down, she felt the worst of it beginning to stir.

With every warhead that struck the mountain’s surface in a fiery burst, the insides of the mountain began to growl like the stomach of some colossal beast, its internal stability being put to the test as missile after missile pelted its once peaceful and majestic exterior. Radon screeched a warning at the metallic constructs, but her warnings went unheeded as the winged vehicles circled around before zooming in to let loose another round of explosive projectiles. As Radon pulled together what strength she had regained and tightened her wing’s grip around her unborn child, the massive black jet dove towards her with a loud, unnatural roar. A volley of dozens of missiles screeched forth from its steely-black form, striking the volcanic ground around Radon with frighteningly powerful force. Explosions far larger and stronger rocked the mountain’s peak, and such was the force that Radon was sent hurtling forward towards the edge of the caldera.

Radon slid one wing forward before pulling along, all the while keeping her egg tucked underneath the other, attempting to crawl down the slope of the volcano. One way or another, she had to get out of here; but such a task was far easier said than done. Her weakened body and exhaustion from the long battle had taken its toll on the battered mother–a part of her doubted she would make it so much as a third of the way down before the constant bombardment of missiles became too much for the great Mt. Fuji to handle anymore.

The obsidian giant of a jet flew overhead once more, firing a second volley of a dozen missiles that pierced the mountain’s hide and erupted in multiple great balls of fire. The mountain quaked again–but this time, it didn’t stop.

All of a sudden, the entire peak of the mountain exploded. Snow and rock blew apart as a massive column of lava rose into the air from the mouth of the angry mountain, fountaining forth with thousands of particles of magma, cinders, and fragments of volcanic glass. Bit by bit, said fragments began to rain down across the ground, some even hitting Radon herself, all the while more magma continued to spew from the ruined caldera in repeated bursts of tectonic fury. But as Radon attempted weakly to crawl further, it was then that the worst of the oncoming eruption revealed itself.

Rivers of lava had begun to flow down all directions of the mountain–towards her and her unhatched offspring.

*****

Rodan screeched in agony when Godzilla’s jaws crunched down on the back of his neck, while his claws grabbed the pterosaur by the shoulders. An enraged shriek tore from Rodan’s jaws as he thrust his head back, but Godzilla relinquished his toothy grip and pulled back just in time. However, he wasn’t done yet; ignoring the pain in his injured arms, Godzilla grabbed Rodan by the beak and forced his head to point upwards, towards his own. All the while his dorsal plates began to hum with growing nuclear power…

Swiftly, Godzilla grabbed Rodan’s lower jaw with his other hand, and pried the pterosaur’s beak open just as the nuclear glow of his spines reached his neck. Taking a great exhale, Godzilla aimed his head down and let loose his atomic ray in what was to be a literal kiss of death–

–had it not been for Rodan firing off his Uranium Heat Beam at the same time.

At such close range, both beams suddenly clashing together all at near point-blank range could only lead to one outcome, and both Kaiju vanished in a fiery rupture.

But it was not to be the end of them.

It didn’t take long before both monsters were flung out of the resultant explosion, looking no worse for wear but still alive nonetheless. Godzilla groaned loudly in equal parts excruciating pain and burning disappointment as he began to rise to his feet. He had the damned mutant–he HAD him! He had gotten him right where he had wanted him, had him just in the right position to finish him off! This battle should’ve been done and over with, right then and there! But no, the abominable creature just had to pull yet another last-second trick to pull himself out of his predatory grasp yet again, and now who knew how much longer all of this was going to take–

Rodan exploded forth from the cloud of smoke with an ear-splitting cackle or rage, closing the gap between him and the ancient dinosaur in less than a second. Godzilla’s widened eyes told all the shock without need for a roar of surprise before Rodan collided with him, his beak piercing his chest and sending him falling to the ground with a mighty BOOM!

As the Monster King lay on his side, a set of talons pierced his neck with bone-cracking force and held him fast to the ground. Rodan towered over him; tired, injured, but alive and more pissed off than ever. Wrath blazing in his golden eyes, the Giant Monster of the Skies reared back as his horns crackled with amber light, and Godzilla had but a second to brace himself before Rodan unleashed his Uranium Heat Beam on the right side of his face.

The radioactive Pteranodon did not stop the flow, and with every last ounce of energy running through his blood he continued to let loose his fiery rage on his hated rival. Rodan was all but shaking with rage as he kept up his violent attack, making absolutely certain that by the time he was done, this petty excuse for a monarch would not be getting back up and standing in his way again. More and more energy he poured into his heat ray, Godzilla’s head all but unseen beneath its sweltering wrath as the ground around his upper body melted into molten slag while snow evaporated into steam.

Over half a minute passed before a loud BOOM! made Rodan cut off his attack, spinning around to view the cause of the disturbance. Beneath his feet, Godzilla lay teetering between conscious and unconscious; the right side of his face had been charred black, his eye having been burnt white from prolonged exposure to Rodan’s heat ray, yet a faint rising and falling of his body revealed him to still be alive. However, the fallen King of the Monsters no longer held Rodan’s attention–the ground was vibrating from a tectonic disturbance, the cause of which Rodan stared upon at this very moment with horrified eyes.

The loud boom that had taken his attention off killing Godzilla had been the caldera of Mt. Fuji bursting apart in a colossal geyser of molten rock that now fountained forth from the mouth of the mountain. Rivers of lava were already beginning to run rather quickly down the side of the now active volcano; the humans had triggered a forced eruption! No longer was Mt. Fuji the beautiful, peaceful peak that Rodan and his mate called their home, the motherland where they would raise their infant together. Now, it was a geothermal monster, a harbinger of doom and fiery brimstone to rain from the sky.

An agonized cry rang amidst the roar of the erupting volcano, prompting Rodan to spring into action immediately. Amidst the downward lava flows, the crimson pterosaur could make out a moving shape struggling feebly in the superheated blood of the mountain. Flames danced around its writhing shape, screeches of anguish reverberating through Rodan’s ears as he flew towards it as fast as his tired wings would allow.

With a last wailing bemoan, Radon all but disappeared from view amidst the building rivers of magma and the choking fumes of volcanic smoke. Rodan screamed as he reached her, fluttering as close as he could to her, begging her to get up. For a brief moment, a fiery shape rose briefly, weakly from the broiling lava flow with a tormented cackle. Rodan lowered himself further, ignoring the choking fumes, just close enough to briefly nudge his mate’s fiery head with his beak and shriek loudly at her to return to her feet. But it was not to be; again, she sank below the lava flow, the rumble of her tormented groan drowned out by the fiery roar of the raging volcano. Rodan screamed so loud his lungs ached, begging his beloved not to give in, but no answer called back from the blaze.

What happened next would shock the world.

With a bass cry, Rodan ceased flight and fell downward, plunging into the molten rock without hesitation. Lowering himself into the mountain’s lifeblood, trying to find the two beings in the world that had brought him so much happiness in life, joining them in the scorching furnace of molten rock that flowed down the side of the erupting mountain like a battle wound. Screeching cries roared from the flaming mass that marked where the Rodans had been all but engulfed by the lifeblood of Mt. Fuji; the world watching with awestruck eyes as the Giant Monster of the Skies refused to live without his beloved.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters himself, had returned to his feet, staring at the bitter spectacle with a sinking feeling in his gut. Like the human audience who glimpsed it, the Alpha Predator could hardly believe what he was seeing. A growing feeling he was a near stranger had begun to fester in his ancient mind, an emotion he thought he had forgotten how to feel. Had he been able to think in words, Godzilla would’ve been able to specifically decipher this strange, thought long-forgotten emotion as guilt. And, so engrossed in this guilt was Godzilla, that he couldn’t even comprehend the shock his mind would’ve felt at feeling such an emotion after goodness-knows how many centuries.

Hearts human and Titan alike sank with bitter melancholy as millions of eyes witnessed the fiery disappearance of the Monster of the Skies. Within the USS Argo, even Colonel Foster did nothing to hide the shocked sadness she felt as she gazed upon the heartbreaking spectacle. Nobody in the massive cockpit judged her for it–they were too busy staring on in a morbid guilt for what they had just done, speechless at the true horror of what their actions had wrought.

Inhaling a saddened gasp, Dr. Ling sank unto the shoulder of Dr. Ilene Chen, her sister; the latter holding her in a comforting embrace as Ling sobbed softly, the screeching cries of the Rodans echoing through the walls of the Argo to burn into her mind. Even as his mate and unborn offspring lay submerged beneath the liquid rock and his wings perfectly capable of flight, still Rodan refused to save himself, and receded too beneath the current of fire and brimstone. The last of their kind; masters of the air, earth and water alike, the strongest, fiercest, swiftest creatures that ever breathed, now sank like weary children against the scorching lifeblood of an enraged earth. In the end, each had refused to live without the other.

And so, they were dying together.

Time and again, their ailing cackles rumbled through the air and earth alike; rising above the blazing fury of the very mountain they once called home that now seemed to devour them, penetrating all barriers to enter the ears of all for miles around, and Dr. Ling sobbed seemingly along with the sorrowful choir. Their cries sounded almost human. It was almost as if something human were dying. As their vanishing shapes became less and less visible under the piling flow of lava and the growing clouds of smoke; as the heated fires, smothering fumes and rivers of magma consumed them in a fiery holocaust, their last fading cries resounded together in a mournful echo.

Limping with the weight of remorse on his shoulders, Godzilla could not stand to be here any longer. Gradually making his way to Behemoth’s unconscious body, the Monster King hoisted the mammoth over his shoulders with a strained grumble. Then, after taking a final ten seconds to stare at the erupting Mt. Fuji, turned around and gradually began to wade out to sea, his surviving companion in tow.

There was no victory today. Not a hollow one, not a barely earned one, nothing of the kind. He had not won this battle. Instead, he bore witness to a baffling display of courage and selflessness he had never seen before, and certainly had not expected to see in such creatures. What he had originally considered to be the most horrific abominations ever created by mankind, the precursors to the next global-scale extinction event, one of skies filled with leather soaring wings and radioactive breath, had shown a love for one another that extended to the point where one was unwilling to continue living in a harsh world without its companion.

Rodan had every chance to escape with his life, to even continue his heated battle with the King of the Monsters, and yet the very moment Mt. Fuji blew its top and engulfed his beloved mate and unhatched child in a hellish current, all such concepts of victory and combat became utterly irrelevant to the pterosaur. All that had mattered in that last, fiery moment was the family Rodan wanted so desperately to have in life, and when he saw it disappear amidst a storm of flame and heat, he had wanted nothing more than to follow them in it, to be with them. When a hostile world that had wished for nothing but their deaths finally wrought it upon his spouse and their child who had never even seen the world yet, Rodan could only long for it in return. Beg for it. And, as Godzilla had just seen, welcome it with open arms.

Injured, scarred, exhausted, regretful, and yet alive in the end, Godzilla, King of the Monsters and Nature’s Fearsome Guardian, wisped a fatigued sigh as he continued to wade deeper into the seas he knew so well, leaving behind the fading echoes of the roaring volcano.

He wondered if he, the most powerful creature on the planet, could ever hope to die as well.

Draw: Godzilla (Legendary), Rodan (Universal)