Author: Joshua Strittmatter | Banner: Joshua Strittmatter

A chittering trill filled the vast cavern of steel, echoing through the glowing tubes that stretched through room after room.

A metal giant towered unmoving in the darkness of the chamber, a hangar so large it dwarfed even the largest sports stadiums. Even the colossus itself looked small compared to the space it was given. Wires and tubes were embedded in different sections of the monolith’s body, as if a means of life support for something with no lungs. For hours the room and the mecha itself had been silent, quiet enough to hear a pin needle drop—but when the tubes lit aglow with pulsing light, that dreaded chitter echoed like a ghostly giggle in a haunted house. Light traveled through the lengthy appendages like spirits, snaking towards the point of connection with that same incessant trill that began to grow steadily in volume.

Snaking towards the motionless giant… … …

Through the tubes connecting it, the chittering light wormed its way into the titanium monolith as pulses of energy began to wave across its metallic grandeur. Twin lights of crimson flashed into existence from a ghoulish face, shining as velvet eyes. Claws like the graspers of a crane began to rotate, with clanks that deafened the massive chamber with painful reverberations. Ruby lights began to shine along the giant’s body, revealing the three blocky plates that lined its back. It was a true beast of a creation; a metallic mockery of a most revered—and feared—beast, standing as the latest of humanity’s proud technological capabilities.

The very moment the robot’s great limbs moved to show signs of functionality, a different sound began to emanate from its artificial being. A sound that implied the presence of something much deeper, darker lying beneath a mere shell of monstrous metal.

…The same unpleasant chittering that flowed through the glowing tubes.

The glow of the android’s eyes grew brighter than ever, betraying the presence of the dark spirit that now possessed its metal form. The mechanical monster opened its mouth, and that same alien trill echoed from its toothless maw; an unintentional far cry from the mighty roar of the beast that inspired its form.

In a window not very far from the standing robot’s head, Walter Simmons watched his company’s creation rise to life. A joyful grin overtook his face as he saw the pulses of azure energy lap across the mecha’s physique, a telltale sign that could only indicate one thing: the Hollow Earth’s energy source had worked, just as planned, the creature was at full power. All the aggravating power troubles and shutdowns were but echoes of the past, all the mistakes were now corrected. Mechagodzilla, the Apex Titan of his own hand, was ready to fulfill its destiny! Walter and his fellow workers watched with glee, a drink in his hand as always, reveling in the handiwork of his company’s mechanical marvel.

But ensconced in his arrogant smiles and a slight fog of alcohol, he could not hear the dreaded trill echoing from the monstrous android.

The robot’s head began to turn, the crimson glow of its internal workings shining like a beacon from Hell within its gargantuan captivity. The chamber thrummed with a booming footfall as Mechagodzilla moved to face the window, where Walter beamed at its sight. But when the mechanized Kaiju lifted its metal skull to look the billionaire right in the eye, Mr. Simmons couldn’t help but feel a cold chill go down his spine. He couldn’t say why, but there was something about the way the Mecha looked at him that gave him a deep sense of unease. As if a force he knew not lay within the crimson lights of the droid’s eyes, looking upon him with the most vile of intentions.

Mechagodzilla took a step towards him.

Walter cocked an eyebrow, suddenly unsure of what exactly he was looking at. This wasn’t what he expected! The entrance to the outside world hadn’t even been opened yet; the robotic wonder was meant to prepare for transportation, not walking in his direction! What exactly was Mr. Serizawa doing in the control room? Rather nervously, Walter made way to the communication line, trying to contact the son of MONARCH’s beloved biologist as the room vibrated with another footfall from the Mecha.

His efforts bore no answer however…

Unease turned to a paralyzing streak of fear, as Walter watched Mechagodzilla lift a rotating claw… … …

*****

Deception Island, Antarctica, was not somewhere one would typically expect the forces of Hell to converge on. In fact, no one would expect someone to construct a multitude of whaling stations and research facilities…on an active volcano, with winds that can reach 200 miles per hour and temperatures drop to -130 fahrenheit. A fact that Nature had taught its former human occupants the hard way; when whaling and seal-hunting had nearly pushed the species to extinction and the fishing community became obsolete, the island was utilized for one last-ditch purpose to be useful. An attempt of which had failed miserably; the island’s volcanic activity had destroyed the research facilities constructed on its surface, and the remains were abandoned permanently like the island itself.

In a land like this, where the shores were still awash with old shacks crumbling with age; a land described by some to be one of the harshest and coldest regions on Earth, any thoughts of further use would be considered null and void. This place was but a relic of history slowly being devoured by the sands of time. If one were to pick this of all places to use for a higher purpose, one would be considered an idiot to do so. Just the same; if Satan and his legions were to amass anywhere in the world for apocalyptic purposes, such a cold and human-less land would be at the bottom of his list.

From what two pairs of eyes could see, however, there was a first time for everything.

For one, Deception Island was clouded in red. Snow still adorned its mountainous foundation, but there was another material mixed in with the frozen water and towering limestone: a misty kingdom of Red Dust, Archetype in its first phase. The skies were clouded in it, blotting out the sun as if it never existed. It was a scene straight out of an artist’s painting of the world’s end, eldritch abominations worse than the denizens of Hell itself having finally breached whatever dimensional barriers kept them at bay from Earth.

But it was the second feature that took Professor Li Guying and her protégé—graduate student Mei Kamino—by surprise.

The two women made certain to stay hidden behind the foundations of rock, even though they saw no other humans present. The old shacks were as worn and tattered as ever, but both Li and Mei could tell that it was not as unused as it looked—all thanks to one dead giveaway. For on the grounds of the ancient shacks, a gigantic cargo vehicle remained stationary; larger than any Li had ever seen in her fifty-two years of life. Upon it, half-draped by a large cloak of green shade, was the massive skeleton of what looked to be a dinosaur. Rows of plates lined its back, wisps of red dust trailing faintly from its bones.

“A Skeleton with a Will,” Mei whispered.

Even with the thick winter coat protecting her, Mei shivered lightly as she stared at it. Beside her Li copied the motion, showing no shame in the action; it was not the bitter cold that enticed her so. Such a sight would cut blades of fear through the souls of even the hardiest, and Li was no exception. As if its mere presence wasn’t bad enough; an extra rotten cherry atop an overcooked cake offered itself in the form of a familiar logo on the side of the vehicle. Even from a few hundred meters afar, both Li and Mei recognized it instantly, and the older woman’s longtime suspicions confirmed themselves to be correct.

APEX had indeed set up shop here. In order to fool the smartest, sometimes you had to think like an idiot—and that’s exactly what they had done. They had thought like idiots, and now a facility of some kind lay hidden in the mountains. Primed and ready to house the ivory vessel that commanded the spreading nightmare, like a sentient tumor propagating a rancid virus.

Except…there was one problem.

“But…if this is the facility, then… … …where is everyone?” Mei asked. “I know capitalists are stupid, but there’s no way they would just leave something like this lying around at their doorstep.”

“Maybe APEX found out those bones were a bomb waiting to go off,” Li replied, slightly shaking her head. “Maybe they tried shipping them here to keep them away from the Kaiju. Maybe they were stupid enough to think bringing them away from a city might delay the Singular Point in Tokyo.”

Mei looked at her. “I’m not following you,” she said, “wouldn’t that just be an invitation for him to follow them here?”

Li’s eyes narrowed just an inch as she turned to look back at the skeleton.

“I’m saying they might’ve tried sneaking the bones away without the Kaiju noticing,” she responded, before adding a hint of abhorrence in her voice, “while they let the Singular Point destroy Tokyo.”

“Sacrifice a city of fourteen million for the sake of a secret to keep,” Mei muttered somberly as she followed Li’s gaze back to the skeleton. “Why am I not surprised?”

There was a specific sadness in her voice that caught Li’s attention, turning her gaze on the graduate student. The professor could tell it was far beyond a basic lamentation; there was a very personal edge in her words, so subtle and yet so crystal clear. For just a moment Li continued to stare at her, unsure of how to proceed—or if she should even proceed at all. But in the end, she decided not to push her any further. She wouldn’t try to pry into the young woman’s life right now, she deserved her sense of personal privacy. Life stories would come later.

A screeching trill echoed from the crimson skies, followed by many others like it. Both women looked up, and a number of familiar shapes could be seen drifting the velvet heavens on leather wings.

“Well if there’s a silver lining in all this, it looks like they didn’t make it,” Li stated. “Radons probably got them.”

“More than that,” Mei almost seethed as she grabbed a pink, dinosaur-shaped camera out of her coat.

“What are you doing?” Li asked, confused at first.

“Evidence,” was Mei’s only reply before she put the camera to her eyes. Focused, unmoving and paying no mind to the cold that bit at her skin, Mei snapped as many photos as she deemed necessary. Taken with the utmost precision and quality; Mei had a natural talent for photography.

The violet-haired woman had only just snapped her last photo when the ground rumbled with a distant boom—and afterwards, the sound of water erupting rebounded through the Antarctic terrain. The pair had just begun to turn around when a sound echoed hauntingly through the mountainous landscape. It was the last sound both women wanted to hear, especially here of all places. A noise so loud, it hurt their eardrums, forcing them to cover them with their hands. Before they could relinquish, another powerful tremor shook the land—and not a second after, another great roar howled into the wind.

SKREEEEEEEEEOOOOOONK!

GRAARRRNNNGR!

A football field’s length away from the shoreline, two giants clashed as the humans stared in frightful awe. One, an amalgamate sea serpent of segmented olive flesh and shrimp-like arms, its shark-like head adorned by a feathery salamander’s mane and pointed horns. It roared mightily as it grappled with the other, wringing its coils around a dinosaurian juggernaut that thrashed amidst the velvet tide. A towering beast crowned by the three rows of alabaster spines lining its great back, swinging a tail that spanned beyond many blue whales. Red dust poured nonstop from its shoulders, puffing into clouds as the beast moved. The abominable serpent clamped its teeth upon scales shaped like a samurai’s armor, and the Singular Point gaped his fanged maw to thunder the air in his wrath.

But try as he may, the Manda’s efforts were for naught.

An evocative chime rang through the atmosphere as the Hopeless Future’s dorsal spines shone to life with azure luminance, and his great jaws gaped. Rings of sapphire energy formed in front of his maw; light refracting through time to contain itself in one concentrated spot. Photons from the future gathering in the present, to amplify in intensity with every passing second until… … …

BOOM!

A cobalt laser of atomic radiation sprung from the Singular Point’s jaws, and the effects were instant and devastating. The Manda didn’t even have time to roar before his entire upper body was severed cleanly from his serpentine form, like a molten knife through a block of butter. Roaring while firing, the Apocalyptic Monster swung his beam over the mountains that towered in the distance, and instantly their peaks were cut clean off their perches before he ceased fire. The sound barrier sang with his triumph when Godzilla shook any and all with his infamous roar, sending flocks of Radons scattering like gnats.

Once an already massive 50 meters in height, both humans could tell that the reptilian yokai was not the same size as he was the last time they saw him. Now, the archetypical behemoth towered an even more incomprehensible 100 meters tall.

“He’s even bigger than he was before,” Mei whispered dreadfully. “He’s been growing in the Red Dust…”

“Mei, it’s time to go,” Li ordered as she stood from her crouch, the young woman following her lead as they turned to go back the way they came.

But when a new sound vibrated from lands the eye did not see, they stopped dead in their tracks.

*****

Shredded skin and bone fell from the rotating cranes that now served as his new claws. The feeling of all their bones crunched to pieces as their flesh was torn asunder had been ever so pleasant to the hulking terror, who trilled with satisfaction as he moved his new limbs of his own volition for the first time.

Twin lanterns of velvet shone from the metal beast’s face, betraying the eyes of the demon within. He knew the exact passing of time since he ended up in his immobile state, his mind a virus that spied upon all that humanity knew. Internet articles, personal APEX files, audio and informative logs, all right under APEX’s nose. It had been eleven years since his humiliating defeat, at the breath of he who he had since dreamt of tearing apart to this day. Eleven long, miserable, tedious, exhaustingly patient years. Too long that he hadn’t seen the great hives of the hairless primates drowned in seas of his creation, birthed by the great cyclonic throne that followed his very presence. Oh how he longed to see the masses die screaming at his feet and atomize into vapor to blow away in the wind at the touch of his breath. To see a whole world end by his hand, to hear his voice rise above the cataclysmic tempests that tore the planet apart as the supreme voice in the cosmos. Spitting in the face of all hope as he stood atop the ravaged corpse of the one he hated more than life itself, the saurian guardian whom had defiled him for so exhaustingly long.

The one who had put him in his miserable state…

His mechanical eyes grew ever brighter at the mere thought of that wretch.

His body was a towering machine knitted in the very design of he who he loathed so very much; but through the countless tests run by its former controllers, King Ghidorah knew this new body was quite a lethal weapon in its own right, thus it would prove him most useful for the time being. A great many skull-faced Titans had already died by this vessel’s hands, in ways that filled the King of Terror with elation; a pleasant exercise that helped him cope with over a decade of waiting.

But wait he would no longer, for he was at last strong enough to live in this body without any more assistance from unwitting primate subjects. An endless goldmine of energy now coursed through this body, powering it like no other energy source could. His body had suffered no scratches or damages in ages; it was at 100% condition and functionality.

It was far past time to reveal himself to a horrified world.

Through the jaws of this ‘Mechagodzilla’, King Ghidorah boomed his signature cackle as he turned his back on the shattered viewpoint that once housed the robot’s dead human controllers, leaving what remained of them behind. Stepping over to the wall, the possessed mecha wasted no time and let loose its most fearsome weapon; a ruby-hued laser that erupted from its toothless jaws to drill through metal and rock alike in succession so short it was laughable. Trailing his robotic head this way and that, King Ghidorah made certain to carve out as much of the material as possible—and all the while, he began to move. Swinging the arms of his new body, he clawed and tore through all in his path. Steel and circuitry were the first to fall, but before long he was shredding earth and limestone like fresh tinfoil. Blasting and swiping, the One Who was Once Many ripped through the ailing prison that housed his tormented being for so long.

When he heard a roar that sent memories running through the river of his mind, memories that would’ve made his blood boil had he possessed any, he doubled his efforts. So engrossed in his fury was King Ghidorah, that he didn’t even notice the mountain rumbling from events not of his doing—but he cared not.

His objective was not much farther.

Light began to spark his vision past the falling earth and rock, and the dragon in dinosaur’s clothing dug ever harder; his crimson beam piercing all the way into the outside world as he carved a canal to herald his emergence. And when the demon ceased fire, he did with a most triumphant cry. Pulling himself free of the subterranean uterus that imprisoned him, expecting a chorus of terror-stricken screams and woeful cries for his return as the skies churned and lit with their electric fury upon his reawakening.

But the bell of his voice went quiet when such fantasies were snuffed out by what greeted his eyes instead.

The sea and sky alike was a bloody crimson, the land around him permeated with an alien red fog that smothered the heavens from view and obscured much in front of him. Even the snow that fell was of this same hue, as if the velvet skies were raining frozen blood. Above the mechanical vessel, pterosaurian beasts soared the skies in mass flocks, filling the air with piercing screeches. He had woken into what looked to be a whole new world, far different from the one he left behind.

It was then that two things caught his eye.

For one, an unmistakable skeleton lay some hundreds of meters away, next to some decrepit structures of human origin. Normally, such a sight would’ve filled the King of Terror with an overwhelming wrath, for no one but him was allowed to slay the Alpha Predator who caused him so much trouble. The ancient saurian was his rival, his nightmare, and therefore his to slaughter and his alone. However, the sight of such bones could bring no rage from him; instead, they boggled his vile mind with a confusion he had yet to feel. For if those bones belonged to his loathsome rival…

…then how come Godzilla himself was standing not far away?

The King of the Monsters looked considerably different than when Ghidorah had last seen him, so different the Living Extinction Machine would’ve likened it to a different creature—had it not been for the mecha’s sensors scanning the saurian, and confirming his signature to match the fearsome Alpha Titan. Strangely, though, Godzilla’s stocky body was leaking wisps of the mysterious red dust that decorated the Antarctic scenery around them. What this alien material was, King Ghidorah could not yet fathom. Perhaps it had something to do with Godzilla’s altered appearance?

Mentally snorting, the One Who was Once Many shook such thoughts aside as his eons-old hatred took over. Taking a step forward, the metallic vessel wailed the demon’s bell-like cackle at his old rival, violently threatening him in this terraformed domain. But when Godzilla howled a roar of his own, loud and truly earth-shaking, the half-dead hydra understood its meaning perfectly. And with it, his confusion broadened.

I don’t even know who you are.

*****

The first footfall was strong enough to throw Mei off balance, and it would’ve knocked her sprawling had Li not caught her. Hundreds of meters down the shoreline, yet so enormous it seemed close, part of a mountain slope erupted into a great explosion of snow and debris as a huge, velvet laser pierced into the crimson atmosphere. Swaying and slicing through hundreds of tons of limestone, the beam opened a swath bleeding with clouds of earth; of which yellow light flashed within like haunting beacons. Seeing these flashes, Mei couldn’t help but see something else entirely, and her mind began to drift…

A metallic skull stabbed from the earthen eruption, roaring a digitized cry as it pulled the rest of its ribbed body into the world. A mechanical titan sculpted in the image of the King of the Monsters himself, waves of cerulean energy pulsing across its metal frame. Gaps in its physique shone with a hellish crimson, giving its form a demonically skeletal appearance. Both Li and Mei stared at it with nothing but horror as it stood upon the wreckage of its emergence, surveying the apocalyptic landscape with glowing red eyes.

Then it turned and looked at the Singular Point.

Godzilla curled his upper lip into a toothy snarl. His draconic eyes pierced the robotic giant with a vicious glare, clearly displeased with its presence. It was but a fleeting moment that the beasts stared off, yet it seemed to last for ages; such was the thickness of the atmosphere around them. Teeth gritting in almost animalistic fear, Mei felt her heart hitch in her chest as she waited for either one of the colossi to break the tension—and while she tried her best to stifle a great majority of it, Li held stiff with the exact same fear. Then the machine reared itself as high as it could make, and uttered a war cry. A very distinct war cry.

A chill colder than anything the Antarctic could deal out, ran like a waterfall down Mei’s spine.

In the blink of an eye, the mechanical terror that stood before the pair had become a completely different beast. With but the chime of a new bell, and the perspective had flipped on its head. No longer did Mei feel the fear of the unknown grip her soul—but instead, the hauntings of the bygones plunged their fangs into her heart. Gone was the sight of a metallic double of Nature’s Fearsome Guardian; for before Mei’s amber-orange irises, her mind’s eye conjured a terrible vision. A vision of a towering golden dragon surrounded by a lightning-infested cyclone, three satanic heads writhing on serpentine necks while two colossal wings cast a cosmic shadow over the world. Cackling to the world with a voice like a bell.

Behind that shell of titanium and steel, a ghost—a nightmare—had come back to torment her once more.

As the otherworldly Godzilla shook the landscape with a responding roar, Li desperately began looking around for an escape route. A crevice, a gap, a structure, anything that would at the very least get them far away from the brewing storm that was about to strike. She could tell Mei was in a very…compromised state right now, so she needed to be the one who acted in this moment. The path behind them was all but terraformed by the hundreds of tons of rock that had now spilled over from the Mecha’s entrance—and going to the side would only move them straight towards the Singular Point.

There was only one place viable enough for the time being.

Grabbing her arm and shaking it just firmly enough to snap Mei out of her flashback daze, Li broke into a sprint. She nearly all but dragged Mei along for the ride, a decision she regretted, but she knew it was the only way to ensure the younger woman’s survival. It didn’t take too long before the younger researcher began running on her own, as the pair sped towards the abandoned shacks at a speed that was far too slow in the grand scheme of evolution.

Simply one of the disadvantages of being human.

She would talk to her later; right now, survival was all that mattered. A signature series of shrieks made the olive-haired woman keep her silver eyes on the sky; several Rodans were soaring like agitated hawks far above. The presence of the two giants on the ground seemed to keep them at bay, which was good news as far as the humans were concerned. It seemed that they too knew what was about to go down—and even they dare not get in the middle of it.

The shacks drew ever closer, but too slowly in Li’s eyes despite how fast they were moving. Both her and her companion were temporarily thrown off their feet, however, when the ground began to quake; Godzilla Ultima was tensing into an attack position, rearing his gigantic tail out of the water and bringing it back down with enough force to skyrocket the Richter scale. Such a matter was only worsened when Godzilla roared, but Li would not afford to let it slow her or Mei down; the stakes were their very lives, and the shacks were not very far away. Scrambling to their feet as fast as they could, both researchers were back on the run before they knew it—just as the ground pounded from a great footfall. The possessed machine had begun to move.

And so too had Godzilla.

Li hoped to the laws of physics that the shacks wouldn’t just crumple from the sheer force of the battle—to say nothing of if the battle got too close to where they resided. But as of now, she dwelt on it not; she and Mei simply kept running into the archaic buildings, the elder of the two searching for the largest one her eyes could find. They didn’t even glance at the skeleton that lay but a short distance; instead Li, still gripping Mei by the arm, bolted for the largest hangar her eyes lay upon. It was strangely…cleaner than the shacks that surrounded it, a feature that peaked Li’s interest.

Was it possible…?

It was then that her eyes spotted it. The door wasn’t just massive, it also lacked rust and wear and tear. It had been used regularly. That alone was enough to spur her towards it, for if it could be opened then it was the only true escape route possible.

BOOM!

An abrupt series of explosions rocked ground and air alike, but were mere preludes to the heavy crash that quaked all that was terrestrial for miles, and the loud roars that followed informed the duo that the monsters had met in combat. Running under the roof that led to the main hangar door, the pair sprinted—only to skid to a halt upon finding the door possessing a very specific means of entrance. This hangar had a security pad, thus requiring authorization to enter—and Li had none.

Half acting on survival instincts and half freaking out, Mei almost smashed the pad with her fist in terrified frustration…until a voice spoke up from the iPhone in her pocket.

“Just leave it to me! I can hack even the most sophisticated security pads!” squealed the unmistakable voice of Pelops II—and not five seconds later, the security pad suddenly ran a most beautiful green, followed by the low drone of metal lifting. Eyes wide as the door began to open, Mei looked incredulously to the animated dog on her phone, who gave her a thumbs up.

“And you didn’t bother mentioning this before?!” she almost screeched, before Li took her arm and bolted inside the door—which, sure enough, led to a massive yellow elevator. Truly gigantic; one big enough to house a Titan skeleton…

“It doesn’t matter!” the older woman roared, a second before another tremor nearly threw her off her feet. “Pelops II! Get the elevator going NOW!”

“Understood!” the AI replied from Mei’s phone, just before a distant wail from…King Ghidorah, rattled the sound barrier and Mei Kamino’s soul alike.

On the control pad the light switched from ruby to emerald…and then, the metal they stood upon rattled. At first, the human pair couldn’t tell whether it was from the elevator beginning to work its function—or the intensity of the titanic brawl outside.

When the elevator began to plummet slowly from the closing doors, gradually descending further into the depths of the underground, they breathed sighs of relief upon finding out it was the former.

*****

1 minute earlier…

Godzilla braced himself as the wailing mecha began to barge forward, strange protrusions growing out of its shoulders. Just as the Monster King had begun to move a barrage of missiles shot from the android’s shoulder cannons, all of them striking Godzilla from various directions. The Apex of the Red Dust howled in surprise but kept up his charge, while Mechagodzilla did the same. A metallic CLANG! boomed across the snow-covered landscape as the giants collided, each with such strength that both were sent recoiling back. Godzilla was the first to snap back to a combat position—but Mechagodzilla was the one who dealt the first move. Flaming jets roaring to life from its rear area, the artificial Godzilla sprang forward with a hand crackling with energy.

BAM!

The robot’s hand smashed into Godzilla’s face, eliciting a thunderous roar as the King of the Monsters staggered from the force of the hit. Not a second had passed before Mechagodzilla attacked again, lashing out with another energized punch. This one was so hard it sent the Apocalyptic Monster toppling off his feet, hitting the ground with a mighty quake. Godzilla shook his head with a snarl before looking up, only to see Mechagodzilla back on the attack in an instant. The same energy now coursing through its foot, the mechanical demon slammed the archetypical saurian in the neck with a savage kick. However, as the android sought to lash out with claws extended, Godzilla reacted much faster than it anticipated; like an angry alligator, the reptilian Oni lunged and snapped his jaws upon his foe’s arm. Sparks began to fly as the Monster King shook his head with a guttural growl.

Wailing with rage, Mechagodzilla raised another energized fist before throwing it down upon Godzilla’s head. Cerulean power rippling through the reptilian’s skull, Godzilla loosened his hold just long enough for Mechagodzilla to kick him right in the gut. As Godzilla stepped back, Mechagodzilla began to turn around—while surprisingly, Godzilla began to do the same. At once, both titans smashed their tails into one another, resulting in a shockwave that rattled Deception Island with a small earthquake.

With fluidity that should’ve been impossible for a giant of such mass, Mechagodzilla twisted around with a hand reared back. One moment it had been facing the opposite direction of its foe, the next it was throwing its hand forward to punch Godzilla in the side of the head before he had fully turned around. His head and neck snapping down from the blow, the Monster King barely had time to react before the mechanical menace grabbed him by the nape. Jet boosters kicking into overdrive, the Apex Destroyer flew forward, taking the Singular Point along for the ride. Throwing its hand down, Mechagodzilla smashed its organic counterpart against the ground as it flew; using Godzilla’s massive body to dig a vast trench across the Antarctic soil.

Another wailing trill exploded from Mechagodzilla’s toothless jaws as it tossed Godzilla forward, sending him skidding part-way into shallow water.

*****

King Ghidorah didn’t care how different his foe looked; he had waited too long to open this present.

Every blow he delivered was more of a gift than anything else the universe had to offer. Every drop of blood, every punch, every kick, every howl of pain from the King of Kaiju did Ghidorah immeasurable wonders and then some. Blood had yet to be shed from the saurian, but this did not bother the One Who was Once Many; he knew plenty of ways to draw as such from Godzilla’s wretched flesh, and it was not to be long before he got started. Taking a moment to throw the so-called ‘Monster King’ forward into the shoreline, the ghost in the shell wished he could smile as he watched Godzilla skid to a halt. Rotating his new body’s crane-like hands, King Ghidorah marched towards his loathsome quarry with the most murderous of desires.

The red mist wisping from the saurian’s shoulders was a minor annoyance to his new body’s visual sensors, but the titanium vessel muscled through it. A little bit of blood-colored fog wasn’t gonna hinder his desire to rip the false “King” to bloody scraps. As he moved, however, Godzilla’s tail snapped up from the ground faster than it looked capable, and whacked the android right in the side with enough force to produce a shockwave. As King Ghidorah reeled sideways, the dorsal-plated reptilian began to push himself back off the ground, slowly finding his feet.

Something the King of Terror deemed unacceptable.

The resurrected destroyer recovered near-instantly, wrath scourging his mechanical eyes. Without hesitation he charged his recovering foe, grabbing him by the tail. As Godzilla roared angrily, the android snapped his entire body around and threw the saurian back across the field of snow and rock. But such punishment was not enough in his eyes, and the Living Extinction Machine took a step back as he charged his most dreadful weapon.

Thankful that the atomic dinosaur had landed with his front exposed, his mechanized body let loose its almighty Proton Scream. The ruby-hued laser flew with spectacular accuracy and power alike to strike Godzilla right in the chest, eliciting a booming howl from his fanged muzzle. Making sure to pour every drop of famished vengeance into his attack, King Ghidorah kept up fire; the crimson beam not only burning hideously into the reptilian’s flesh, but exerting enough force to send him skidding back the length of two football fields. Only then did the mechanical giant cease fire, and Ghidorah clattered with laughter as he looked upon his vessel’s handiwork. Godzilla continued to howl in pain as he rose his head off the ground; a horrendous crater having been visibly seared into his torso. Cauterized and glowing with roasted embers, smoke poured off the grisly injury to mix with the red dust that composed of the atmosphere, filling the air with an organic stench that would’ve incited vomit from the most hardened souls.

The possessed machine had only just begun to sprint towards the downed saurian, when his dorsal spines began to illuminate with sapphire light…

Had he still possessed real eyes, King Ghidorah would’ve widened them in an instant. Terrible memories began to take hold of his mind; he knew full well the signal those spines gave him. Rings of atomic energy rapidly formed in front of Godzilla’s snout as he gaped his jaws, glowing with an otherworldly light. The vessel’s jet boosters kicked to life in the nick of time before the King of the Monsters fired his all-powerful atomic ray, and the android sped away just as the recovering Godzilla swung his head after him. The azure firestorm swept across the ice and stone where Ghidorah’s vessel had been standing a moment ago, slicing a glowing scar across its surface before its owner changed aim. As the mechanical Godzilla flew about, the angry saurian stood up as he began to trail his heat ray after him, trying to clip the mecha right out of the sky. The One Who was Once Many shrieked as he fled the beam’s wrath—and from what he was seeing, he had every right to. The heat ray sliced through ice and stone with absolutely terrifying precision, even cutting a few mountain peaks off their tops with the cleanliness of a Japanese sword through fruit. King Ghidorah didn’t even need to guess how much danger he was in.

One real strike of that beam, and this mechanical body was done for.

Quickly, the malignant spirit within the vessel began to ponder a counterattack. Making sure to keep as far away from the cerulean death ray as possible, the mechanized puppet opened its shoulder pad to extend a package of missiles. Godzilla was not fast enough to strike them down in time, and the barrage struck him in the head. Fazed, the saurian misaimed his blast—which was all that King Ghidorah needed to make his move. Blocky jaws alight, the Proton Scream roared into existence to blast into the reptile’s midsection with such force it carried him off his feet. The misfiring atomic ray sliced into the crimson skies above, carving open a swath for dusky sunlight to shine through. It was only a temporary occurrence, but a biblical one nonetheless; like a scene straight from a Beksinski painting, a beam of gold shone down from the velvet heavens to illuminate the possessed mecha as it vented its wrath upon his loathsome rival.

As if some higher power were glorifying the return of the Golden Demise.

*****

Having rolled onto his stomach, Godzilla’s side was now taking the brunt of the Proton Scream—but like his own beam, it too didn’t last forever. In seconds it dissipated, and without rest, Mechagodzilla rocketed forward, claws crackling with cyan energy. Reflexes snapping into gear, the King of the Monsters stood on all four legs like a monitor lizard—and the moment the android came into range, he swung his huge tail. Once more, the appendage slammed the titanium doppelganger with enough force to crack the earth; a shower of sparks flying as the metal dented slightly. Mechagodzilla screeched as it was sent careening sideways to crash to the ground, sending a spray of archetype-mixed ice and snow into the air.

His armored scales crackling with strength as he began to stand to his feet, Godzilla snarled and turned his fearsome gaze on his mechanical double. As he assumed, the Apex Destroyer was not on the ground for long; whipping its tail against the ground, the robot propelled itself just high enough for its jets to ignite. In billows of fire and smoke, Mechagodzilla returned to its feet with a dreaded war cry.

Burnt skin peeled away as new flesh bubbled and threaded to the surface, repairing Godzilla’s painful wounds. The sight of it seemed to make the artificial behemoth balk for a moment, but the Apocalyptic Monster paid it little importance. Tensing into a defending position, the saurian yokai bared his upper teeth in a threatening growl; a gesture of which Mechagodzilla replied with a metallic clatter as it spun its rotor-claws. All around the opposing giants, flocks of Radons screeched about as they flew above and in-between them with seemingly little care. Neither goliath paid the pterosaurian pests much notice, for they were too busy shooting one another with bloodthirsty death stares. A laughing thunder and a screaming quake roared at once from the monsters’ jaws as they both charged up their most formidable weapons; a glowing red maw of metal locked on to tusked jaws shining with cerulean radiation, atomic rings flashing into existence to line up their own aim.

Swiftly, both monoliths let loose interlocking beams that incinerated any Radon unlucky enough to be in their paths. The power of the energetical collision swept away waves of snow and Red Dust, battering the giants with harsh winds produced by the impact. Slamming his serpentine tail against the ice behind him, Godzilla fiercely held his ground as he spewed his atomic cargo. The desire to demolecularize his mechanical double was stronger than steel, and he poured every last drop of it into his infamous weapon. But his foe’s own death laser was no pushover; the Proton Scream pushed back with every bit as much rageful force, its owner equally craving to see the annihilation of the plated saurian.

The reptilian Oni continued to fire with all the energy he had—but in doing so, he didn’t notice Mechagodzilla pulling off yet another unexpected trick. From the android’s ribbed chest, a massive hatch began to whir open. With a clang that was drowned out by the roaring of clashing energies, another missile pack revealed itself—and by the time Godzilla noticed it, it was too late. Twelve rocketing projectiles hunted from the robot’s chest with smoking streaks, quick as lightning. One after the other, they each exploded into clusters of smaller missiles that all subsequently detonated against Godzilla’s upper body. Taken aback by this surprise attack, the Apex of the Archetype staggered back.

And once again, Mechagodzilla seized control of the fight.

Not paying attention anymore to his energy output, the Monster King was helpless as the Proton Scream overpowered his heat ray. A powerful detonation enshrouded Godzilla before he re-emerged skidding back, the Proton Scream pushing him a few thousand feet away. Luckily, the saurian slammed his tail against the earth to ground himself, preventing himself from falling. Still his wounds stung with malicious pain, and the Sacred Beast of the Apocalypse bellowed in anguish as the blast tore into his rugged scales. In his pain he hardly noticed Mechagodzilla cut off its lethal laser, a prelude to the droid breaking into a murderous charge.

Hardly was not equivalent to not at all.

*****

King Ghidorah could barely distinguish the scarlet hue of the red dust that painted the landscape, and the red of bloodlust he swore met his vision as he charged towards his downed rival. Agony shattered the air with a screaming thunder from Godzilla’s jaws, a sound that fed the powerful euphoria that flooded Ghidorah’s mind like a drugged haze. A state of mind already berserk with decades worth of built up desire. The King of Terror cared not that he acted through the hands of a puppet, by means of nothing but consciousness; he craved to feel Godzilla’s blood run down his hands, feel his skin drape from his claws. He longed to hear the falsely called “King of the Monsters” scream and howl into the night for as long as the draconic spirit desired, to entertain the One Who was Once Many with his favorite music until any and all means of suffering were spent to the last drop. Such fantasies blinded King Ghidorah to a very dangerous fact:

The King of the Monsters would not go quietly into the red night.

Far quicker than he had ever used it, Godzilla let loose an atomic ray that clipped Ghidorah’s vessel right at the edge of its left shoulder—and already, the damage was alarming. Part of the joint had been vaporized into nothing but atoms that blew into the wind, and the metal that surrounded it had nearly melted into glowing slag. The ghost in the shell recoiled like a person having touched a hot stove, baying in anguish.

One touch. Just one slight touch of that blast had done this much damage. If something so small as a graze packed these results, just imagine if…

The King of Terror clattered mechanically as his vessel backed away, crimson eyes locked upon the saurian who now crouched low to the ground like a leopard. Godzilla slowly gaped his jaws at him, snarling a warning to keep back. Ghidorah had no idea how his rival’s heat ray had increased in power so significantly. How was his body shedding the maroon clouds that shrouded the land? His wounds healing in the middle of the fight? The masses of winged beasts that soared the skies around them? There was so much the Living Extinction Machine didn’t understand. Just how much had changed since his demise? How could so much change so quickly in the grand scheme of things? The thought process was beginning to send Ghidorah’s mind in a headache, one he knew right away to distance himself from. Finding out the mysteries of this brave new world would come at a later date.

As of right now, the spirit’s puppet hung back to let the smoke curl off its “wound.” A respite that both combatants were happy to partake in.

*****

While the metallic CLANG! of the elevator coming to a halt did little more than quake beneath her feet, Mei Kamino felt as if she had been thrown right out of her body. The images flashing before the veil of her orange eyes had torn asunder into obscurity in favor of the reality in front of her. Even with the trembling quakes rumbling from the battle raging far above, the lights all around did little more than flicker once or twice before continuing to shine on. The grated doors in front of her slid open faster than their massive size looked capable, somewhat startling the young woman—or at least, she wanted to be. Mei wanted to block out the dark dwellings of her mind with anything else that seemed remotely interesting…but it was a losing battle on her part. Nonetheless, even with legs shaking so badly they wanted to collapse, she tried to stand.

The feeling of being so scared you couldn’t stand was one of the worst imaginable. In the past and present, it was often one would describe fear being so powerful it could literally paralyze a grown human being. That it could turn the strongest legs to jelly, rendering one helpless to escape the source of their terror. Contrary to what a foolish few may think, such fear was a very real sensation and not an exaggeration of the mind.

Even with layers upon layers of soil and crust blocking them from the surface world, the distinctive and terrible trill of the Golden Demise reverberated from afar, amplifying Mei’s trembling. It was a miracle in disguise, then, when a pair of arms gently grasped her shoulders to hoist her standing once more.

“Mei,” Li said once, shaking the grad student just firmly enough to get her attention, yet still soft enough to be gentle. “Take a deep breath.”

The young woman shuddered horribly even in breath, but she did what she was told as best she could. Li kept watch over her all the while, helping her through her breathing process and keeping the possibility of a panic attack at bay. Such a process was rendered harder when a low boom vibrated through the earth, followed by the muffled roars of the dueling giants far above.

“Listen to me,” Li muttered with a calm authority as she looked the grad student in the eye, taking off her gas mask. “You don’t have to talk about it right now. You can wait until we get back to the boat, if you want. But we need to get moving. Whatever these people did down here, we need to uncover it.”

Trying to keep her breathing as steady as possible, Mei mustered enough strength to nod; a sign that she was listening. Another familiar trill echoed from the surface world, averting the younger woman’s eyes for a moment before Li moved in front of her. Keeping her from focusing on the dark terror that dwelt above.

“Come on,” the professor murmured as she took off her own gas mask. “You can hold my hand if you want.”

In a moment of unavoidable dread, her best was all Mei could go with; but her best to keep a brave face she gave nonetheless. Her hand gripped hard enough to nearly bruise, if Li had any genuine discomfort, she didn’t show it; she simply gave her companion the support she needed as they began to tread down the hallway, lit by a vivid blacklight. Strangely, it had gone silent far above, resulting in a silence so eerie it nearly made Li consider turning back. Their footsteps alone, soft as they were, felt frighteningly loud in the utter quiet as they echoed through the hall. Whether the battle above had come to an end was unknown, but Li didn’t care; forward was all they could go right now.

They could only hope that the battle never took itself to the ship, or it was sayonara to the only transportation they had.

For longer than either woman was comfortable with, the silence held its uncomfortable grasp as they walked on. No impact tremors, no echoing roars, no signs of the gargantuan battle between two harbingers of the end times; just a dim glow of blacklight only bright enough to tell them where they were going. The walk through the hall, while quite a distance in and of itself, was not quite as long as it seemed. For Li it may have seemed decent enough, but for her younger companion, a combination of alertness and afterpanic made the tread riddled with a suspense that made her want to jump at every shadow. For with every shadow before her, she never saw simple blankets of darkness. She saw only the malicious images the tricks of her mind wanted her to see.

Images of draconic heads crowned by devilish horns. Seething at her with jaws full of pointed, drooling teeth…

A large part of Mei hated herself at this moment. She had always been socially awkward—particularly when she was the center of attention—but this was something else entirely. She felt like a useless weight, dredging along wherever someone else pulled her. A liability that dragged others down with her in a moment of utmost survival, all because of one weakness.

A low rumble from above caused the young woman to jolt, very nearly tripping over herself had Li not gripped her tightly to steady her back on her feet. “Shh, just keep walking,” the professor whispered as they resumed stalking through the empty hall of steel. Not once did Li snap or get frustrated with her, even though she had every reason to. She merely kept Mei on her feet as they walked quietly onward, their presence surprisingly not given away to whomever might remain.

Why was the professor so patient with her…?

A cackling trill froze her in her tracks, each and every primal fear kicked into gear—but she didn’t stop alone as Li too, had gone still as if a prey animal detected by a predator, which indicated only one thing:

That sound—that godawful, eldritch abominable sound Mei wished she didn’t remember—was not in her head.

Sharing a brief look of fear, both women looked to their left. They were standing next to a door, one they would’ve passed by without care had they not heard that ominous sound. They stared at it uncertainly, not sure they wanted to see what lurked behind. But they both knew they had to, in the end; toppling APEX demanded exposure of what secrets they concealed, and both women knew without a doubt that one such secret lay behind that door.

“Pelops II…”

“Don’t have to tell me twice!”

Before Mei could finish her sentence, the security pad next to the door already flashed green, chiming as her AI companion finished his task before she could order it at all. The door unraveled just as swiftly, revealing its once-shadowed contents—and time itself seemed to halt. Neither of them needed to step into the room to know it was considerably large, almost a miniature hangar. And in the middle of it, lay something most rancorous to behold. The sight of which sent the paralyzed Mei into full fight or flight mode, only prevented from doing so by Li gripping her tightly by the arms.

The malformed, disembodied head of King Ghidorah.

The head’s flesh was flaky and partly decomposed, giving it a zombie-like appearance. Long wires threaded out of its cranium, pulsing with light as they extended to places unknown. And that eye…

That cold, motionless, cloudy orange left eye staring into empty space…looked as if it still gazed with an expression of nothing but sheer malice. The same malice Monster Zero expressed when he was alive. Here he was, reduced to a rotting shadow of his former horrible self, and yet not an ounce less of terror did his presence excrete. Even in what should’ve been death, the King of Terror lived up to his name.

Mei wanted this to be a nightmare. She wanted all of this to be one bad nightmare, to wake up and still be on the boat as it sailed towards Antarctica. But she knew it was nothing of the sort; she was staring a ghost of the past in the eye once again, after years of sleepless nights and mournful days in the shroud of loneliness. The bane of her life, the root of years of terror and sorrow, resided right before her.

“… … …we have to destroy this place,” Li whispered dreadfully.

And the earth trembled with a booming cackle far above…

*****

Steam blew from titanium jaws as the mechanical vessel issued Ghidorah’s cry for bloodthirst.

From across, a fanged maw loosed a throaty growl of their own as their owner rose back to his full height. Godzilla seemed eager to oblige the world destroyer’s request.

Their little respite was over. It was time to get back to business.

The Mecha-Godzilla rotated its claws as it barreled towards the giant reptilian, its feet leaving gigantic craters in the rocky soil. Godzilla held back, tensing as he prepared to block or counter Ghidorah’s incoming offensive. The ghost in the shell perceived right, and Godzilla’s spines flashed like lanterns as he fired a quick atomic ray. Wishing he could smirk, King Ghidorah ducked under the blast, before continuing to charge. So the King of Kaiju twisted around to swing his gigantic tail—only for the King of Terror to activate his vessel’s thrusters and jump fluidly over the saurian. The moment he hit the ground, the One Who was Once Many twisted around and fired his vessel’s Proton Scream. The crimson ray of death struck Godzilla right in the face, sending the howling Monster King skidding back a good hundred meters; his tail the only thing that prevented him from being blasted off his feet.

With a booming cackle, King Ghidorah dashed madly at his most loathsome rival. Too speedy to counter, the Undead Extinction Machine slammed an energized fist into Godzilla’s throat. Before the saurian had even finished gagging from a cracked larynx, the mechanical vessel had already given his jaw a hard uppercut, before then kicking him in the stomach. This time, the blow hit hard enough to make the welp stagger, and with a roar he toppled to the ground. Not a second had passed before King Ghidorah was back on him; jets activating, the possessed mecha sprang in and snagged Godzilla by the throat, dragging him across the icy earth with a vengeance most delectable.

The mechanical puppet finally stopped when he turned left and slammed Godzilla off the edge of the beach, half submerging him in the deeper water. His prey at his mercy, King Ghidorah held the saurian down with one hand, while he punched him in the head repeatedly with the other. The water and Godzilla’s flesh alike rippled with the waves of energy conducting through them, loud roars splitting the air with every blow; alas, the King Kaiju would not go down so easily. Blinded by his vengeful thirst, the King of Terror didn’t notice Godzilla’s oversized tail rising up until it was too late; the giant appendage slammed into the titanium puppet with a CLANG, knocking him off his feet. However, the One Who was Once Many was quick on the draw as always in his new body, and activated his jets just in time to prevent himself from being floored entirely.

As Ghidorah touched down with distance gained, Godzilla rose from the blood-red ice water with a savage snarl; his mythical eyes brimming with a bloodlust of his own. The Undead Extinction Machine bayed a mocking cackle at him, begging him to give in.

The Perpetrator of the Red Dust gladly obliged.

Crimson water splashed as taloned feet as big as whales broke into movement. Holding in a theropod-like pose, the King of Kaiju rushed back into the fray as if he bore no fatigue whatsoever. King Ghidorah imagined himself smirking, rotating one of his claws as he prepared to knock the daylights right back out of the loathsome saurian. The moment his enemy was within reach, the dragon’s vessel raised his arm and brought it down…

…only for a deafening CLANG to echo field-round as Godzilla caught it in his jaws with a snarl.

*****

Mechagodzilla had no time to counter before Godzilla cranked his neck as hard as he could, twisting on his heels with an astounding effort. With nothing but the sheer power of his jaws, the Singular Point whipped himself around and lifted his mechanical doppelganger off its feet, swinging him like a dog with its chew toy. As a baying wail echoed from the android’s maw, it lashed out with a clawed hand but missed in the confusion. Summoning all effort in his 100-meter body, Godzilla yanked around and threw the mechanical saurian straight at the nearest mountain. By the time Mechagodzilla activated its jets, the robot had already crashed into the side of the tower of limestone and red snow. As rock and particles of white and velvet fell all around the shrieking machine, the Apex of the Archetype immediately began to charge up his most formidable weapon; his adversary was in the perfect position for a lethal shot.

However, the android was much quicker to recognize the imminent doom Godzilla’s glowing spines signaled. The air chiming from the deathly rings forming at the yokai’s jaws, Mechagodzilla made good use of the little time it had left and let loose its crimson beam. The Proton Scream let off just a second faster than its opposition, and Godzilla was struck in the stomach and sent careening sideways; his heat ray firing off into the maroon-clouded sky. However, the interdimensional Oni managed to stabilize himself before he could fall completely. Thus, he regained his guard just as Mechagodzilla rocketed free of its crater, surging towards him with claws raised. When the robot swung its arms, this time Godzilla ducked right under it, stopping the droid cold with nothing but his dorsal spines. As sparks flew from solid titanium scraping against razor-edged bone, Godzilla reared up and slammed his full upper body into the mecha, clutching it in a powerful hold. Roaring into one another’s faces, the two giants staggered about as they grappled for control of the battle; the earth shaking from their monstrous footfalls.

Rotor claws gripping his shoulders, Godzilla growled as the rotating saws began to cut into his skin. Nonetheless, he persisted, for the wounds were minor at best. Mechagodzilla, meanwhile, bayed in what seemed to be frustration as it stumbled about in the evenly-matched death grapple; seemingly unable to deliver a proper blow due to the tight situation it found itself in. Yet, even in such a tight situation, the titanium demon seemed to be never short of a Plan B.

Sparks flew yet again as Godzilla managed to clamp his tusked jaws upon the android’s neck. But as he grappled further with his adversary, the Monster King heard a peculiar noise begin to rev into existence.

That one moment of confusion, one that stalled his aggression, was all Mechagodzilla needed to take him by excruciating surprise.

A horrible pain jabbed into Godzilla’s side, just above his left hip. Eyes wide with agony, the Apocalyptic Monster reared back with a mountain-rattling holler. Alas, the agony did not stop; it only continued to dig deeper with every second. When Godzilla looked down to view the source, he looked upon a most grotesque sight: the end of Mechagodzilla’s tail rotating at rapid speeds, drilling deeper into his flesh!

A sickening sound echoed from the mechanical demon, one that resembled mocking laughter, as if it reveled in the reptilian’s suffering. Deeper and deeper the tail drill bore into flesh and muscle, blood and red dust spilling from the deepening injury as Mechagodzilla laughed in the voice of a true devil—laughter that stopped cold when glowing rings formed in front of Godzilla’s gaping muzzle. Quickly, Mechagodzilla ripped its tail free of the saurian’s body in a spray of gore, eliciting a painful snarl from the yokai before he let loose; the heat ray cutting into the ground, just missing the appendage by a few inches.

The seconds presented before it were seemingly golden, and Mechagodzilla didn’t waste a single ounce. Limbs ripe with Hollow Earth energy, the mecha reared a foot—only for Godzilla to act at the exact same time, and kick the mecha in the stomach. As the droid stumbled back, it shrieked with a horrifying revelation: Godzilla was still firing his ray. As the Oni swung his head, Mechagodzilla ducked with as much speed and agility it could muster, narrowly avoiding a blast that would’ve taken its head off. Instead, the blast carved straight through the mountain behind the droid, boring a glowing gash for all to see.

Still keeping up fire, however, the King of the Monsters swung the blast back towards his mechanical doppelganger. Acting fast, Mechagodzilla let loose its Proton Scream, and the two beams collided in yet another ray struggle. The titans stood firm against the forces of the conflict, flocks of Rodans shrieking in terror as the two death rays vied for supremacy. However, unlike last time, it was now Godzilla’s heat ray that was beginning to gain the upper hand of the conflict; a tide that Mechagodzilla couldn’t seem to change, no matter how hard it tried. And this time, the King of Kaiju poured every last drop of energy into his atomic fury, full and bent on not giving the android an opportunity to counter.

But such outcomes were not always his to control.

So blinded he was in his rage, that Godzilla did not hear—nor notice—the blocky sounds of Mechagodzilla’s dorsal spines beginning to snap about. The Perpetrator of the Red Dust simply focused on his enemy, intent on nothing but his utter destruction. So, he was caught by surprise when what looked like a black cloud began to emerge from behind the robotic menace, spreading all about its sides. But as it increased in size, Godzilla suddenly realized that it wasn’t a cloud at all—but rather a swarm of hundreds, maybe thousands, of small flying objects. Objects that seemed to spawn like locusts from behind the android, swarming towards him as the air began to fill with a loud buzzing noise. It was a buzzing that, Godzilla found out, was not biological in nature; rather, it was entirely mechanical. For the perpetrators were not creatures, but machines! Numerous, single-minded, weaponized flying machines!

Carried on the crimson wind by spinning rotors, countless miniature flying drones approached the Monster King with a mindless demeanor. Utterly confused at their presence, Godzilla’s focus fell away from his mechanical doppelganger as his eyes snapped back and forth amongst the makeshift crowd that now surrounded him. It was not a very wise tactic, as the reptilian would come to learn; all at once, each of the drones opened fire upon him with a machine gun each one carried. In an instant, the Singular Point was engulfed in a massive shroud of bullets that bounced against his armored scales. While the bullets did not harm the mighty Godzilla, they proved to be extremely irritating—especially one that shot him in the eyes.

A maneuver that proved catastrophically distracting.

As Godzilla winced and twitched from the annoying sensations, he lost focus in the beam struggle he participated in—and it cost him dear. In a surge of effort, Mechagodzilla’s Proton Scream abruptly overpowered his atomic ray, too fast to counter. The crimson laser slamming into his torso, the Apocalyptic Monster was knocked once again off his feet and sent careening straight into the water far away, landing in the deeper recesses with a great splash. His torso burned horribly and the firing drones continuing to follow him, a bellow of pain erupted from Godzilla’s jaws.

Even before he had started, Mechagodzilla was already charging onto him with crackling hands. With terrible grace befitting a vampire, the android closed the gap between it and its prey in less than three seconds; pounding Godzilla right back into the water with a powerful punch. The Strongest Monster tried to whip out his tail, but before it could score an impact Mechagodzilla intercepted it with its own, smacking it back down while at the same time the droid stomped on Godzilla’s head. Its quarry in place, the mechanical demon began to pound into Godzilla’s back with energized hands, slamming his dorsal spines again and again with blows that rippled with energy. Some cracked, smaller ones broke rather quickly, but to the malevolent droid it wasn’t enough.

In a savage rage, the robot unleashed its Proton Scream upon its prey’s back, trailing it along the forest of ivory that crowned Godzilla’s mass. This time, multiple spines broke and burned, flesh searing and boiling beneath it, and the yokai let out a piercing howl of anguish. It must’ve been music to the android’s audio receptors, because that same sickening laughter chuckled from Mechagodzilla’s jaws as it grabbed its organic rival by the neck in its hands; industrial saws cutting into the saurian’s skin, shedding blood and Red Dust as the cackling robot began to hoist him out of the water in a death grip.

A booming roar shook from Godzilla’s jaws as small explosions began to erupt all around his body, taking Mechagodzilla by surprise. The android couldn’t detect where these explosions were coming from, for it seemed that they had just manifested out of nowhere! Failing to recognize that it was the Red Dust itself that was beginning to combust, the droid temporarily backed off as the explosions began to tear down its drone army. Many by many, the flying machines were caught in igniting ruptures, their flaming remains sent plummeting to the water below. It wasn’t long before their numbers were significantly reduced, and Godzilla began to finally stand back up out of the red water. A furious shriek boomed from Mechagodzilla’s muzzle as it charged the saurian Oni, hands rotating in deadly anticipation.

What happened next, the artificial Godzilla could’ve never predicted.

*****

King Ghidorah wished he could’ve seen it coming.

With a thundering war cry, the King of the Monsters abruptly expelled a gigantic burst of Red Dust from his massive physique. Quickly engulfed from sight amidst the rupture, the burst grew rapidly into a plume that rushed in all directions, enshrouding everything in its path. The plume of Red Dust rushed against the mechanical vessel at gale-force speeds, enveloping it as it did all else for miles around. Before long, the entirety of Deception Island and beyond had been enshrouded in brand new layers of the maroon particles; a colossal mushroom cloud of biblical proportions now stretching into the sky with a roar akin to a wrathful hurricane.

The combined force of the gusty plume and the island’s natural snowstorm tested Ghidorah’s vessel to its limits, but in the end his robotic body was able to retain its footing. An angry cackle rebounded from Ghidorah’s puppet as he fought against the forces that sought to vanquish him, demanding his rival to come forth and face him. As the Mecha-Godzilla took a few steps back, he looked over his shoulder to find a sight that peaked his interest: the Red Dust was rapidly seeping into the great rent in the mountain from whence he had emerged.

Which meant that it would seep just as quickly into the facility that kept his remains. And if these strange particles had any energy signatures whatsoever—or interfered with power sources in any way possible… … …

Within his mind, a dark smile crossed the King of Terror’s imaginary face as his vessel’s eyes gleamed with ruby light.

If the circumstances were just perfect enough…if he played his cards just right… … …

*****

5 minutes earlier…

The recesses of the earth rumbled with ominous force as the battle far above resumed.

Mei Kamino sat down in the hallway, just outside the dwelling place of the One Who was Once Many; her arms wrapped around her curled-in knees as she sat shivering against the cold metal wall. Her orange eyes glistened in the ambient blacklight, trails of fresh tears staining her cheeks while she stared at the ground; pupils narrowed in a mix of primal terror…and something else. Something deeper, something fundamentally more painful.

She had all but hyperventilated in fear upon seeing what remained of the Golden Demise, had excused herself to go recollect in the hallway and Li didn’t stop her. The professor was still in the other room, trying to look for any way at all to destroy the hellish relic. Something, anything to aid her—but all the while, never getting within so much as eleven feet of the King of Terror’s motionless head. Severed skull or no, Li knew full and well never to underestimate something you don’t understand—hence the aftermath of this facility in the first place, and the possessed droid engaging Godzilla Ultima above the surface. After a few minutes of scouring about, Li sighed a shuddering breath of dreadful defeat. No matter what she found or where she looked, the professor could find nothing in the hangar that could lead to the head’s destruction. If they were going to wipe it out, they would need to look elsewhere—or, worst comes to worst, wait until the battle was over and get back to the ship to break the news.

Though even that was a risk; a ‘what-if’ left to chance. The ship was far away from the battle, but there was no telling how long before that changed.

The unmistakable wail of King Ghidorah cackled from far above, making the professor twitch as she backed away at last, never once taking her gray eyes off the motionless head of the King of Terror. Mei hardly reacted to her presence when she stepped back out, even when she quietly sat down right next to her without so much as a breath. Even Pelops II—the little chatterbox who was never short of something to say—didn’t dare speak; even he knew when to keep his mouth shut.

“You lost someone to him?”

The professor’s voice was still gentle as a fur coat when she finally spoke. It was just a guess, but the first her mind could dig up.

“My pare…” Mei shuddered a breath for a moment, mentally steadying herself before finishing, “…he murdered my parents.”

The older woman’s eyes widened just a centimeter as she looked to her protégé. The professor felt a twinge of familiarity—equal parts bitter and cold as the Antarctic landscape outside, and warm and gentle as a winter coat. Nonetheless, she still didn’t speak a word, only looked at the grad student with silent expectancy. If anyone was going to be doing all the talking right now, it was Mei and Mei alone. And how much talking she wanted to do, how much detail she wanted to give away, was her choice just the same. Even if she only told the story in fragments, telling just a little over the span of multiple days, Li would be just fine with it. Even if it took the younger woman weeks to be truly comfortable to explain everything from beginning to end, that was her choice.

“He’s why I live on my own.”

Silence blanketed the grounds in its return, broken only by the muffled echoes of battle in the surface world. And Mei continued to sit in that silence. Sitting mere meters outside the one who had ripped her family away from her, forever. The only thing standing between them and a destroyer of worlds, being a wall of steel just a few inches thick. A wall, nothing more, separating her from one of three faces that haunted her nightmares since she was a child.

Why was she here? How did she even get here? She came to help expose a corporate underworld, partake in steering the world away from a complete catastrophe. Not to get thrown smack face-first into memory lane and face her demons made flesh…

“I didn’t sign up for this,” Mei said.

She said nothing else, and she didn’t have to. If that was all the vague information she wished to relay, Li would let it be so. So she changed methods.

The older woman reached out with a hand, resting it on her companion’s arm. “Breathe deep,” she ordered softly. “Don’t talk, don’t think about anything, don’t focus on…him. Just close your eyes and breathe for a moment.”

Mei stole a glance at her, eyes glinting with uncertainty, but went along with her request in the end. Li didn’t get up once; she sat right there with her the entire time, monitoring her progress from beginning to end by her side. Even when the graduate student began to show signs of slowed, calmer breathing, the professor’s hand never left her arm. The breathing exercise lasted more than a minute, not easy by any means, but in the end it proved doable for the violet-haired woman. She was not free of the fear bestowed by the force that sat stagnant in the room behind her, by any means, but its claws had retracted enough for her to regain a clearer sense of mind. A few more steady, gradual breaths followed from the young woman, and only when she finally opened her eyes did Li begin to retract her hand.

“Are you okay?”

Mei nodded with one last, shuddering breath. “Yeah…yeah, I’m okay.”

“Okay,” Li replied as she stood Mei back to her feet. “Are you feeling up to continuing on?”

Mei nodded, eliciting one last ‘alright’ from the older researcher. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

“Shhh,” Li interrupted gently, “don’t do that. Don’t ever apologize for not talking about your scars right away. It always takes a while before we’re comfortable talking about something that changed us that much, that’s just part of being human.”

She gave Mei’s hand a light squeeze. “I know exactly what that feels like.”

Mei looked at her, slightly confused. “What do you mean?”

Li exhaled softly, her eyes glimmering just a second with..something else. Glistening with a past that could not be seen, fogged with ghosts that the graduate student couldn’t make out. Ghosts…

…or nightmares…?

“Do you remember Operation: Hedorah?”

Mei went entirely still, her eyes flooded with instant recognition. She may not have been there physically, but like just about everyone she had seen it all on the news. In 2020, not one, but two giant monsters converged on Beijing, China and battled for territory in a clash that decimated half the city… before the Chinese government responded by deploying a biological weapon the likes of which had never before been seen:

A mass of muck-like microorganisms of unknown origin, which combined and reconfigured into a colossal red-eyed beast made of toxic sludge and poisonous smog. After a violent battle, the “smog monster”, Hedorah, killed both monsters—only to then almost immediately go on a far more devastating rampage; completely annihilating the cities of Beijing, Langfang, Tianjin, Cangzhou, Binzhou, and Dongying, devouring any and all pollutants it came into contact with…and then simply leaving into the sea. Disappearing without a trace, leaving millions dead and millions more injured, sick, or homeless in its poisonous wake.

After taking a deep inhalation herself, Li composed herself well enough to continue.

“My husband and… my daughter, were in Langfang when Hedorah was unleashed.” There was a different kind of softness to Li’s voice. Not of tender gentleness like before; but something far more distant, more forlorn. Like a mournful echo, brought back from what felt like another life entirely.

“They never reached the nearest shelter…” she sighed again, a little bit of a stutter to it, “…before the creature flew over them.”

Mei didn’t need to inquire to know exactly what the professor was talking about. The poisonous gas Hedorah spread in its Flying Form was beyond infamous. Millions of people and animals alike had died when the Smog Monster gassed entire swaths of city just by merely flying over them, asphyxiating before then dissolving into skeletons. The implications Li gave Mei told everything: her family were casualties among them. The two most loved, most important and treasured people in her life were choked right out of it in the blink of an eye. One moment amongst the land of the living, and gone forever the next.

If there truly were words to describe the emptiness of such a specific loss, the void the loss of your loved ones left behind, Mei did not know them. But then, perhaps she didn’t need to. Perhaps empathy for those who bore such emptiness was more than enough. So the young woman simply nodded, so small and soft as she issued the only real words necessary.

“I’m sorry.”

Li simply nodded back, just as small and slight as she blinked slowly. “I’m sorry for yours, too.”

There were no comparisons made, no contests of any sort over whose loss was greater. Both women simply found understanding in the truth: loss was loss, and it hurt like a crippling poison no matter what form it took. Even now, Mei found herself worried for Li’s plight. At least her very own nightmare had the misfortune of being half-dead, with the present chance of being destroyed. For all humanity knew, Li’s demon—her nightmare—was still out there somewhere. Raising the possibility that the professor may yet cross paths with it again…

Mei shook away that line of thought. Best not to dwell on such fears for now.

For a moment, the atmosphere was quiet once again, sans the rumbling war tremors and echoing howls of the Kaiju that raged above the surface. Nervously, Mei turned her head back in the direction of the room, motioning towards it.

“What are we gonna do with… it?”

“We’re gonna keep looking through this place,” Li began, speaking slowly, “we’re going to look for anything we can use to call for help, and we’re going to order this place destroyed as soon as possible.”

Mei took a soft breath.

“…and what if we can’t send out any calls for help?”

Li copied her motion, before responding.

“Then we’ll try to destroy it ourselves, and go back to the boat on foo—”

“There is no need to send out a call for help!” a digital, high-pitched voice interrupted her from Mei’s phone. The amethyst-haired woman pulled out her phone, staring upon the animated visage of Pelops II on her screen.

“What do you mean?” Mei asked.

“The USS Argo is already on its way; estimated time of arrival in half an hour!” Pelops II answered.

The pair looked to each other with broadened eyes, taken aback at the sudden news.

“Excuse me?”

“You never called MONARCH, did you…?” Mei asked.

“I never call MONARCH,” the older woman answered, “so your guess is as good as…”

Li’s eyebrows raised for a moment, as if an idea had struck her mind.

“Pelops II, is the Argo close enough that you could potentially send out a call for them to blow up this building?”

Abruptly, a digitized blaring began to emanate from Mei’s phone, something that visibly caught Pelops II’s attention. The animated dog reached behind him and pulled out a big red flag, setting it down next to him. “I would if we didn’t have a big problem on our hands!”

The duo balked at this. “What do you mean…?”

“Mei, look!” Li said in alarm.

The older woman motioned down the hallway, and the graduate student froze. A steady fog of Red Dust was drifting down the hallway in their direction, and even in the flickering blacklight they could make out its distinctive hue enough to know what it was.

“Oh, shit,” Mei hissed.

“It’s going to interfere with all electronic signals,” Pelops II stated, “I can’t send anything in this.”

The crimson fog grew ever closer, the lights beginning to flicker and spark in its wake, and immediately Li began unzipping her coat’s left pocket. “Gas masks, now,” she ordered.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long before the pair had their masks back on once more, uncomfortable as it was to have to wear them perpetually. Alas, it was at that moment when the duo noticed a new problem: the lights were dying out rapidly, bursting with sparks before fading out entirely as they were exposed to the Red Dust. The hallway was not only obscured by Archetype, but now it had all but gone dark. It would be impossible to see where they were going if they proceeded any further, leaving only one option before them.

“We’re turning back,” Li commanded, “we’ve seen everything we need. We’ll go back to the surface so we aren’t in here when the Argo arrives.”

“… … …leaving us exposed on an Antarctic island in the middle of a fight between two monsters,” Mei realized, her voice laced with fear. As if on cue, the ground far above shook once more, echoing with the unmistakable cries of the warring titans.

“If there was a better choice, I would go along with it in an instant,” Li responded, grabbing Mei’s hands. “But this is all we have left. Now we need to leave, and we need to leave soon.”

The Red Dust was seeping over them now, the black lights around them already flickering in their death throes. In the end, even her terror of what raged far above could not keep Mei grounded where she stood, and she followed the professor as they ran back the way they came. She didn’t bother taking one more glance at Ghidorah’s disembodied head as they passed it by, electing to look the other way until she knew for certain he was far behind them.

Die and go back to burning in Hell, you son of a bitch, she thought venomously.

Their departure left behind the slow fog of Archetype—but in their haste to leave this tattered tomb behind, they failed to notice the dust beginning to seep into the room that housed the demon’s head… … …

*****

A rumbling clatter echoed from the vessel’s jaws as Red Dust obscured his vision.

Potent as the excitement of regaining what he lost was, King Ghidorah didn’t let it overcome his senses; his loathsome rival was somewhere hidden within this maroon haze. Stalking him like a cat in the shadows, waiting to catch him off guard when his back was turned; a thought of which made the possessed mecha chitter furiously. Typical Godzilla, lurking in the shadows to play the game of ambush. Curse him!

The One Who was Once Many looked to and fro, his sensors doing their best to pinpoint every last detail amidst the vermillion fog that enshrouded the battlefield. Unfortunately, no sign of his adversary presented itself to his eyes. The velvet fog was too thick, too widespread to offer the visuals the ghost in the shell needed. Hollow Earth energy pulsing across his vessel’s titanium frame, King Ghidorah spat his Proton Scream and trailed it throughout the maroon mist. High and low, the Mecha-Godzilla aimed the ruby-hued tunnel of plasma—and felt a jolt of mental adrenaline when something ominous caught his eye. A telltale azure light, illuminating off the spines of a massive reptilian shadow…

His survival instincts taking full control, King Ghidorah ducked as an atomic ray passed right over his head; a blast that would’ve sliced clean through him had it made contact. A few unlucky Rodans were atomized in the blast, not even given time to cry out.

King Ghidorah cackled as he activated his jets, breaking into a sprint towards the fading outline of the shadow. He jumped when, predictably, Godzilla’s colossal tail swung to meet him, avoiding it by an inch as he landed upon his intended target. The reptilian’s world-shaking roar echoed across Deception Island as Ghidorah’s vessel beat into him, but his beatings garnered less of a reaction than last time.

At least, less of the one he desired…as opposed to the one he received.

With a showcase of strength unforeseen by the spiteful spirit, Godzilla reared up and shoved the Extinction Machine off of him. King Ghidorah bayed in surprise as he staggered backwards, nearly knocked off his feet had it not been for his vessel’s tail to steady him in place. He made use of every second available to completely regain his composure…all the while the Red Dust obscuring Godzilla parted, just enough for the King of Terror to see him clearly. But what he saw took him aback, making him question if what he was seeing wasn’t an optical illusion.

The Monster King had grown in size.

Once standing a head shorter than the mechanical vessel, the Perpetrator of the Red Dust now stood equal in height to his rival. And if the King of Terror had to guess, it could only be assumed he had grown significantly stronger and heavier along with it. How the saurian had done it, King Ghidorah did not know. And the more he did know, the more he did not understand. Such hindrances frustrated the One Who was Once Many, for if he could not analyze every detail of a foe he once thought he knew from every angle, then the road to defeating him would be that much longer.

Pawing the earth beneath his vessel’s mechanical talons, King Ghidorah bayed his signature cry as crimson lightning flashed in the heavens. Red snow bombarding his rugged hide, Godzilla echoed a roar of response before breaking into a lumbering march.

*****

Mechagodzilla wasted no time in sprinting forward, hands crackling with cyanic energy.

Godzilla stood his ground with a snarl, meeting the charged strike head on as the two giants met once more. The punch to the head was powerful and brought forth a roar from his maw, but Godzilla held together better than he had before. The android struck the saurian’s shoulder with its other hand, but the Apex of the Archetype retaliated in quick succession and swung his head into its face. As the robot recoiled from the strike, Godzilla lunged and clamped his jaws around Mechagodzilla’s throat like a tiger. The interdimensional Oni shook his head as he applied pressure to his jaws, his teeth fighting to breach the titanium hull of the mechanized monster. His teeth made progress, but only by a slight and gradual margin; even against a physically strengthened Godzilla, Mechagodzilla’s hull was difficult to break through.

One moment he had his prey locked in a firm grasp, and the next a mechanical knee jutted into his gut. Twitching from the blow, Godzilla had no time to counter before Mechagodzilla slammed his jaw with a charged uppercut. The air rang with an eerie chime as the saurian’s spines lit aglow, but he had no time to unleash the blast before a robotic hand seized him by the throat. Jets activating at full power, Mechagodzilla bayed its demonic cry as it powered into a straight flight, dragging Godzilla along for yet another ride. The Perpetrator of the Red Dust managed to fire a weak heat ray, only for it to shoot harmlessly into the sky.

Summoning his herculean strength, Godzilla began to turn about to whip his tail—but at the last second, Mechagodzilla raised a hand to catch the appendage; an echoing CLANG booming across the island that parted the Red Dust around them. Twisting around on its heels, the mechanized doppelganger threw the Monster King off his feet yet again. The moment Godzilla hit the ground, the Apex Destroyer was on him with a flurry of charged strikes.

Punching, kicking and stomping upon the yokai in a frenzy, the android made an increase of size look insignificant. To tip the scales further in its favor, the mecha activated its tail drill and plunged it into Godzilla’s side in a spray of blood and Archetype. The Singular Point roared torturously as Mechagodzilla held him fast by the head, gripping with both hands. Thrashing got the saurian nowhere, for the android’s grasp was too firm and his drill was beginning to get too deep.

The mythical reptilian roared in anguish as Mechagodzilla’s hands wound their way around his jaws, securing just as firm of a grip. Chittering with laughter, the droid began to pry them apart…

*****

Millions of years’ worth of history flashed before King Ghidorah’s vision as he seized Godzilla’s head.

The rage he felt towards his old rival skyrocketed beyond the diameters of the biggest stars as he let the memories flow. He remembered when he first arrived on this wretched ball of rock and water, the very atmosphere casting itself out of order upon his mere being there. He towered over all back then, even the planet’s biggest inhabitants clouded by his shadow as it encompassed the primordial earth. So many lives he had taken before finally being toppled, and even more it had required to cast him down at all. An entire world was left in cold, dark tatters by the time he was defeated; entire species had been driven extinct, tiny and Titan alike, while others were left on the brink.

And through it all, one Titan in particular had stood out amongst them all. Many of its species had roamed alongside it, the apex predators of their ecosystems until Ghidorah’s coming. Amongst the strongest of all the Titans, that species. Mighty even by themselves; alas, one caught Ghidorah’s eye even amongst their then-vast ranks. Godzilla had been so much younger back then, but held an aura of power that seemed to overshadow his foremothers and fathers that King Ghidorah couldn’t help but notice. Countless of his race met their deaths at the King of Terror’s claws, yet out of all of them one in particular just wouldn’t submit to his rule. The blood of an entire race ran at Ghidorah’s feet while they lay dead around him, yet one Alpha Predator in his prime rose above them all to be the one thing that could stand equal to the dragon’s awful power.

The one entity that proved able to defeat him.

From that day henceforth, not a single entity across the very universe itself dug as deep a thorn in King Ghidorah’s side as Godzilla. Of all the countless planets that fell to the might of the Death Song of Three Storms, few possessed powers equal to the Titans that once roamed this planet en-masse—and none of them held a candle to the King of the Monsters. If a nightmare was one’s mind digging into the deepest recesses of one’s greatest fear, then nothing plagued Ghidorah’s mind so effectively. But if a nightmare was one’s mind torturing them with their greatest source of antipathy, then Godzilla was, is, and would forever be King Ghidorah’s nightmare. No matter what changes befell his old rival—whether he had a different face or body—he would forever remain the same in Monster Zero’s eyes so long as he existed. He was a star that shone brighter than all amidst the chaotic sea of hatred and insanity that was Ghidorah’s mind.

A star, the ghost in the shell had every intention of snuffing out.

The Mecha-Godzilla echoed with the destroyer’s giggling as its hands wound their way to Godzilla’s jaws. Millions of years. Not thousands, millions. That was how long the Monster King had been the King of Terror’s greatest pain, the sourest fruit in a tree of names that clutched King Ghidorah’s heart with animosity. An entire life spanning all those millions of years, all at the mercy of his mechanical fingertips…and all about to be obliterated from existence and memory alike in the blink of an eye.

The robotic vessel’s tail drilled further and deeper into Godzilla’s body, the reptilian’s echoes of agony making King Ghidorah’s heart soar. Pulling the saurian’s head up to face his own, a giggling trill thrummed from the puppet’s gaping jaws. The draconic spirit delayed no longer; he had waited far too many eternities for this. The greatest happiness existence could offer was about to be all his, a present he had waited too long to open finally about to be disemboweled. His years and years of lying in wait under humankind’s thumb had paid off better than he could’ve ever anticipated, and at last the rewards of patience lay at his very hands just begging to be reaped.

The One Who was Once Many cackled and pried Godzilla’s squealing maw wide open, a scarlet glow illuminating his jaws when he reared back. Millions of years had all built towards this moment, his time to exact his vengeance, and his time was now…

The charge of his dreaded weapon deafened him to an organic CRACK echoing from his quarry’s body.

Something red and revolting erupted from Godzilla’s back, pulsating with repugnant strength as it lengthened in shape. A thick pillar of organic tissue burst into existence from the Monster King’s spinal region, red as the dust that poured from the saurian’s body. King Ghidorah twitched upon seeing it, unable to react before the bloody tendril extended with the grace of a striking serpent; coiling around the puppet’s neck and forcing the head up with frightening velocity. A full second hadn’t passed before the Mecha-Godzilla’s Proton Scream launched into nothing but the Red Dust-infested sky, incinerating nothing but a few unlucky Radons in its wake. Only now did King Ghidorah comprehend how shocked he was at what he was seeing, at how rapidly the odds had tipped from his favor. His shock only heightened when the blood tentacle split into five parts at the base, ensnaring the puppet’s wrists, ankles and tail with vicious speed.

Yellow eyes blazed with wrath as Godzilla uttered a savage growl, and at his sound the blood tentacles pulled with hideous might. The drill-tail was torn free of the reptilian’s body, the wound beginning to bubble with blood as the process of regeneration began; meanwhile the blood tentacles, sprouted from Godzilla’s back like a gory third hand, yanked the vessel’s limbs outward and crucified the King of Terror. Suspended off his feet, the Undead Extinction Machine tried his best to thrash while Godzilla rolled onto his stomach. But woe to the possessed puppet, for his movements were suppressed and vain against the strength of the putrid tendrils that ensnared him. His eyes were agleam with demonic fury, his wails of rage rattling Deception Island to its core.

His baying fell on indifferent ears, for cerulean rings birthed before Godzilla’s glowing jaws.

Often it was that nightmares could make you scream. Many out of terror, when horrific images raced to meet the dreamer with the foulest deeds gleaming behind evil eyes. Or when humiliating situations happened on an eternal loop that the dreamer could not stop, pushing them to the point of awakening with a throaty yowl. Some made their dreamers scream with sorrow, surging awake with tears streaming down their faces. The images of lost loved ones permanently etched in their brains to the point their faces still haunted their dreams; a terrible reminder of the greatest treasures of life that had now been lost forever, and would never return. And before the nightmare that held him helpless, scream King Ghidorah did indeed—but it was neither with terror nor sorrow.

No, only a rage that matched the heat of a supernova powered the booming cackle that howled from King Ghidorah’s mechanical vessel. His eyes alone were all but gleaming with it, even when staring demise right in the face.

The atomic lance flew right through the Mecha-Godzilla’s mouth. The titanium hull of Ghidorah’s puppet turned to slag in the blink of an eye as Godzilla’s heat ray cut right through the metal skull, erupting out the back. The King of the Monsters wasted no time in dropping his head, and his atomic ray trailed along. Molten nickel fountained everywhere as the strongest titanium imaginable became nothing but butter to a hot knife, and Godzilla’s atomic breath slashed the crucified mecha vertically in half; the heat ray slicing into the ground itself before finally being cut off. Only then did the blood tentacles retract back into their owner, letting the results unfold: the mechanical puppet split in twain, both halves toppling opposite sides to each other with a THUD that seemed to stop time.

But even in the moment of defeat, the One Who was Once Many had things to say.

*****

A low chitter trilled from the severed halves of the vessel, as its eyes flickered in their death throes. It was not a call of defiance, nor a statement of power. The chitter skidding to a sonorous drone while the mecha’s eyes faded out for good, the King of Terror uttered a low warning. An evil warning. The storm was still coming; it could not be stopped. This defeat, did his rival truly think this was his death? The end of their eons-old rivalry? No, this defeat was merely a delay. The inevitable would arrive and when it did, the world would panic. The storm would come.

King Ghidorah imagined himself smiling as his perspective changed, his hold on the ruined mecha relinquishing at last. His nightmare had triumphed yet again, emboldened his hatred of him to new heights. But within a moment, he was no longer out in the Antarctic shoreline; a glossy eye twitched as the dragon felt his true vision return, his eyesight beholding the man-made room that contained his lone, disembodied head. Just as he had suspected before, the Red Dust had leaked inside, and was beginning to fog up his prison’s interior. The back of his lips twitched, cracking just the faintest hint of a smile; the first true smile he had borne in years.

An unnatural reaction arose as the transdimensional material enshrouded the room. Lights didn’t just start going out; the Archetype began effectively trapping it. Even light that originated from the future, not the present, began to be drawn by the interdimensional materials…and redirected towards the only object in the vicinity that could absorb it. Decayed flesh began to glow with a heated aura, bathed in all the energy the Red Dust had trapped as Ghidorah’s head absorbed all of it like a sponge. The intake was slow at first, but began to pick up speed in rapid succession as the amount of energy drawn in almost seemed to overload.

And with it, the effects Ghidorah desired more than anything began to take shape.

Flesh began to grow anew at a steady pace, any signs of decay sealing up as the head’s condition restored itself anew—but that wasn’t all. New muscle began to thread from the stump of the neck, beginning to extend and strengthen into the start of a new neck. It was at this moment Monster Zero realized something: locomotion was now possible. His neck had become just long enough to provide the movement he needed.

Pushing with all the strength his neck muscles had at the moment, Ghidorah powered his head into rearing itself up. The glowing wires embedded in his head, still pulsing with Hollow Earth energy, were of no hindrance—in fact, they were his exact target. The Red Dust was already trapping and redirecting the light they gave off, but he needed more. He needed to speed up the process, and he knew exactly how to do it. Using all his strength into keeping his neck upright for just a moment, King Ghidorah angled himself to bite down upon the wires—and this time, the desired effects were not gradual, but immediate.

An immeasurable wave of energy flowed into him like the rapids of a river; not just the Hollow Earth energy, but soon all the leftover energy in the facility itself was his to consume. Electricity jolted all across the demon’s form as his regeneration skyrocketed, a process destined to outgrow the room that contained him.

Nightmares were a formidable force, possibly amongst the greatest powers of the mind—but in the end, they would always fall to the inevitable. A nightmare could last however long it wanted to its victim’s mind; hours, days, even an eternity. But even an eternity was no match for the inevitable.

Sooner or later, you always have to wake up.

*****

The clang of the elevator opening was drowned out by a tremor that knocked Li Guying off her feet. The fall hurt, but she was thankful she didn’t bang her head against anything. Nonetheless, she was quick to climb standing and pull her companion along with her. They were moving the moment they both stood, the knowledge of what was at stake a powerful motivator. The cold became their enemy in an instant, biting back into the anxious pair even through their winter clothing; but still they ran, putting as much distance between themselves and the massive shack as possible. Out of the shack, past the Skeleton With a Will, and into the vermillion deep freeze beyond.

A loud splash echoed in the distance, followed by an angry roar. It seemed the battle had taken itself a great distance away from the hangar, far enough that Mei and Li could only vaguely glimpse Godzilla’s silhouette locked with a serpentine mass. It seemed a Manda had taken the opportunity to ambush the Apocalyptic Monster, keeping his attention occupied at the moment. It seemed a victor had emerged in the previous battle, for “Mechagodzilla” could not be made out clearly amidst the crimson haze that enshrouded the beyond.

It was not satisfying enough for Mei Kamino.

What did bring a twinge of satisfaction to her veins, however, was a distant roar of an inorganic sort. A faraway sound that started growing ever steadily. It was the roar of jet engines, mighty and loud even far away and unseen; by such frequencies, the bearer had to be huge. The graduate student already had a hunch of its identity, even as the ruby-hued blizzard that scourged the island obscured it from view. Its identity did not remain shaded for long, however; the deafening roar growing to an all-new crescendo, a gigantic black jet zoomed forth from the crimson clouds. It resembled a massive B-2 Stealth Bomber, but many times larger and accompanied by two smaller tiltrotor planes Mei recognized as Ospreys.

Neither Mei nor Li needed to look for any name or logo on the vessel’s hull to know its identity, for they recognized the USS Argo by sight and reputation alone.

The two women waved their arms as they called out to the flagship of MONARCH’s G-Team, ignoring the battling Kaiju farther down the shoreline. They knew their cries would not be heard by the dueling colossi; instead they focused on trying to get the Argo’s attention as quickly as possible.

Their waving slowed to a stop when they noticed one of the Osprey’s descending, lowering itself in their direction. Even amidst the savage winds that battered the landscape, the Osprey powered through as it eventually touched down upon the icy earth, its rear facing the duo. Not a moment later, a door to a sizable hangar opened from the vehicle; within it, a group of four soldiers called out to them, motioning them to get in. Without delay, Li and Mei ran towards the opening, the soldiers offering hands as they helped them inside through the Red Dust snowstorm.

“Are you two okay?!” a particularly muscular man called out through the incessant roar of the wind.

“We’re fine!” Li responded, before the vessel began to groan as the hangar door finally began to shut.

The pair made way to their seats and began to strap in, while up ahead the pilot peered over the cockpit. “How are they doing, Barnes?” inquired the pilot, First Lieutenant Lauren Griffin.

“Both passengers retrieved, and we’re all seated,” replied Jackson Barnes as he finished strapping into his seat, “we’re good to go!”

“What about the boat?” Mei cried out. “You had to have passed a boat! We’re not the only ones!”

“They’re being taken care of,” answered Griffin, “Osprey Unit-3 will be bringing them back to the Argo.”

“Wait,” Li interrupted as she felt the plane beginning to vibrate in preparation for takeoff. “Why are you all—?”

“That ‘BB’ guy gave us a heads-up,” Barnes answered, “he must’ve known where you were going and why.”

“He was kind of an ass about it,” added a younger soldier.

Li took a moment to shake her head, a small grin tugging at her lips. “Of course, he did,” she muttered.

“Please,” Mei spoke up, a sudden tone of pleading in her voice. “We need to talk to whoever’s in charge as soon as possible!”

The soldiers looked amongst themselves for a second, their expressions beginning to contort with alarm. The young woman sounded desperate to the extreme, as if she had just seen Lucifer himself prior to their arrival…

“Wait, why?” Barnes asked.

“MONARCH needs to destroy the APEX facility right away! We can’t leave a single trace behind!”

“Colonel Foster already has orders to blow The Skeleton up—!” Griffin called from up front, before being abruptly cut off by Mei.

“It’s not just The Skeleton,” Li stated, “There’s something else in the facility!”

“You can take it up with the boss lady as soon as we get back on the Argo,” Barnes responded, “right now, we better get out of here before Godzilla shows up!”

The two women fell silent, briefly sharing a glance upon the mention of that name. A being that shared that name resided below them, yet there was no mistake in who the soldiers were referring to.

“Godzilla’s coming here?” Li asked with a raised voice.

“The REAL Godzilla,” one of the soldiers clarified, “not Mr. Sabertooth Rex down there.”

It seemed fate was in quite a funny mood, for only a second after he spoke, the air was rattled by an unmistakable rumble. One so powerful, even the airborne Osprey vibrated from its might.

“Ladies, are you in for a show tonight!” Barnes said with a hint of excitement.

*****

A ghostly blue light started to permeate in the water offshore, outshining the velvet hue of the Red Dust. A deep thrum echoed in its wake, a sound of which caught the attention of all creatures in the vicinity. Even a good distance away, the Singular Point discarded the dead Manda from his jaws and turned to the direction of the sound. Rodans began to perch upon whatever surfaces they could find, chittering in curiosity at the sight of the engorging glow. As if it were an ethereal water ghost, the light trailed towards the shoreline with a length beyond that of five whales.

All the pterosaurian pests took flight with terrified shrieks when the glowing water burst outward; erupting in a luminous geyser that gave way for a colossal form to rise forth. A burly, ancient goliath of similar shape to the Perpetrator of the Red Dust, eyes and jagged spines alike aglow with nuclear might. An elephantine foot took a step upon the shore that rattled the deepest of hells, earning a deep snarl from the Apocalyptic Monster.

Godzilla, the Alpha Predator, thundered a booming roar as he turned to face his interdimensional ‘twin.’ He knew full and well his challenge would bypass any barriers of language, and reach the yokai loud and clear. From across the elderly defender, Godzilla Ultima pawed the earth and replied with a war howl of his very own, more than willing to put the Alpha down permanently.

The world stood still at what occurred thereafter.

A demonic trill reverberated from within the mountains themselves, and at its very coming the ground itself began to tremble. Both Godzillas stopped cold, but only the Alpha Predator bore an expression of horrified recognition. The clouds above, already furious with the snowstorm they produced, abruptly grew even wilder. A streak of lightning—not red, but a haunting gold—lashed across the brewing heavens, followed soon by another. Rodans began to be blown out of balance mid-flight, shrieking as the winds tripled in power.

The top of one mountain shattered. Rock and snow flew in all directions, sending avalanches down the slope…and from it, six orange eyes peered with satanic delight. Another burst of snowy limestone paved the way for two colossal wings to spring into sight; pulling forth a golden body with three writhing, cackling heads. Talons strong enough to crush diamond perched atop the ruined peak, forcing their owner to his full unthinkable height when he spread his wings and laughed his freedom to the world. At his call, the Kaiju of the Red Dust went absolutely wild; some Radons screeched and flocked around the three-headed dragon like the denizens of Satan, while others perched upon whatever surface they could find en-masse. Meanwhile, Mandas pulled themselves forth onto land like fish evolving into amphibians, uttering lowly roars of submission.

At once, both masses of Kaiju lowered their heads in the direction of the wailing hydra.

The sight of the Alpha Predator taking three steps back was the most terrifying thing anyone could witness. Godzilla was never known for displaying fear, but here was the one foe that could draw such a powerful instinct out of him. The one force that could stop him cold where others failed. A ghost that haunted him ever since he was in his prime, a ghost he thought destroyed forever, stood alive and well atop the very mountain before him.

His ghost, his nightmare… the One Who was Many had returned.

*****

The Osprey had only just finished landing in the Argo’s main hangar, when that eldritch cackle rebounded through all within reach.

Mei Kamino felt her blood turn to ice, a notion shared by all MONARCH personnel as the call echoed through wind, rock, metal and flesh. No walls could’ve concealed the sheer might of that sound, no matter how thick the steel. The cries of Radons and Mandas roared into the blustering wind outside, as if echoing in the wake of the monstrous cackle. The graduate student didn’t want to get up and walk out into the hangar, for she knew exactly the sight that would await her when she did.

When the violet-haired woman failed to get up from her seat, Barnes rushed to her side to unstrap her seatbelt. Calling to her, trying to snap her out of her fearful paralysis as he hefted her to her feet; but no matter how high he raised his voice to get her attention, she could hardly hear him amidst the cry of her greatest fear. And when the grad student finally found herself being rushed out of the Osprey and into the still-open hangar, she turned to at last look upon the three-headed shadow that cast itself over the world once more. Her tormentor in life and death. The murderer of millions. The Golden Nothing, the King of Terror, the Three Headed Monster…

A gut punch from the fist of despair nearly sent Mei to her knees, saved only by the tight grasp of Li as she stared at… him. The ghost that haunted her whenever it pleased, her nightmare that woke her crying at night.

King Ghidorah was back.

Winner: Godzilla Ultima