Author: Jack Blackburn | Banner: Matthew Williams

Screams threw themselves at the heavens as mighty works of mankind were laid low, every skyscraper a Tower of Babel sent hurtling down upon the uncountable fleeing masses. Whether death by lightning strikes from the omnipresent downpour, surging tidal waters that drowned to the streets, or the crumbling monoliths that had once been homes crushing their inhabitants; the fatality count was skyrocketing by the second. What had once been a city of millions would become a city of a few hundred by the time the living embodiment of mankind’s extinction departed.

Titanus Ghidorah flapped his wings amidst his ever-growing hurricane, all too happy with his own progress. During his rampage in the past, mankind, gods, and monsters alike had fallen before his might and became nothing but food in his ever-craving hunger for energy. The sun had not passed overhead not but several times since his release, and he was already off to the races. So many matters had paid off so well. Many a human personally snuffed out by his direct acts, an incalculable number of the small, disgusting wretches dying by the moment by his own hand with the storm or the instruction given to his new dominion of titans; and his greatest opposition already dealt with.

It was the dominion of nature that the powerful made way for none. That was as simple as law as one could comprehend, even to a mind as alien as one could imagine.

There had been a brief time that he feared, yes. Not necessarily of being afraid in itself, but rather of failure. He was weak upon first emerging from the icy prison, and the resident, now disposed king, had virtually been right there waiting for him. The recharge on the long flight that had generated the storm heralding him had been necessary for revitalization, absorbing every lightning strike upon his golden majesty to reignite sparks of power. It was more than sufficient to deal with a pestering fire demon that he had swiftly brought low. Not even interference by Godzilla in a surprise attack had averted his plans, though some trouble had been found there.

Ghidorah did not know where that green eruption of light had come from, nor the strange sensations his alien body experienced on contact with it; but he could comprehend his fortune upon seeing the disastrous damage it wrought upon his most hated foe. After a quick stop at Rodan’s radioactive volcano to repair one of his lost heads, his dominion of this world as its new ruler was made clear with his self-appointed crowning as Alpha of the Titans.

They, the slain king’s once subjects and caretakers of this world, obeyed him now. Hunting and ravaging the annoying pests called mankind together. He would soon partake in more of the carnage, but a brief detour was in order. Something tantalizing was tasted on the wind, detected across the magnetosphere he was so attuned to. Ghidorah had chased such power before, long ago. That was what had led him to the southernmost continent of the planet in that bygone age where giants roamed the earth, sensing something potent to scour and consume within the world with an access point in the southern wastelands. Godzilla and his company of fellows had led to his defeat just before Ghidorah could crack into the fragile crust of this planet and fully expose the doorway to what he detected beneath on his first venture to this world. He’d been denied then of the vitalizing energy that was rightfully his as the new alpha of this dominion.

Ghidorah would be denied no longer. If there was another doorway opened up to the world beneath and what it offered, the only thing in his way was the time taken to fly there.

The Death Song of Three Storms emerged from the storm clouds at his back, mist and plumes rolling over his body in contrails as his crackling and electrified form glided towards dry land up ahead, which he was almost surprised to see.

The landmass ahead was one he had recognized from his first incursion upon this planet, a large plane of rock jutting out of the South Pacific. The civilization had once been here, before his arrival and subsequent storm after slaying its guardian sent the whole of the destabilized subcontinent hurtling into the sea. There hadn’t been a single survivor, something he had gleefully ensured after crushing hope like he crushed its protector.

Apparently, an upwell of volcanic activity had started pushing this lost land back to the surface recently. The landscape was a barren and fiery mass, occasional pyroclasts and lava flows still crisscrossing the span of it that was devoid of soil and plant life currently. Shattered remnants of stony buildings, perhaps once encased within the ash laden flows of the many volcanoes still erupting on the surface, were slowly being made visible. Ghidorah’s oncoming arrival had whipped forth the gales of wind, depositing ash and smoke across much of the air. Still, even without a single inhabitant in sight, his arrival was not alone for long.

Hordes upon hordes of flapping darkness rapidly made their hasty retreat from the interior of the island, literally flying in the exact opposite direction that Ghidorah was heading. The One Who is Many recognized the horde from the times before. Their master had both quarreled and at times been a lukewarm ally of his in that past. He didn’t see their master amongst them, and that oddity of the swarm caused one of Ghidorah’s extensions to narrow its eyes.

He followed the trail of gigantic bats to find one even larger.
***

Titanus Camazotz had been jarred awake by Ghidorah’s usurpation, but was not keen to oppose unless the opportunity came. Though it definitely gave an opportunity all to its own by permitting him free reign to unleash his hell swarm upon the unsuspecting human settlement. His thirst for destruction and their thirst for flesh was well satiated upon the plundering of San Diego. Falling back to the hollows he uniquely amongst titans knew so well, his eye too had been drawn to this lost land. The bio signal of its protector, snuffed out by Ghidorah long ago, had been absent.

Camazotz had been previously weighing options between new lands to ravage or settle, and there were many human hives nearby that were appealing targets. But the lost continent had proved more appealing. Its tantalizing dominion had not been as vacant as the king of bats had been expecting.

The stony fist smashing into his face and breaking off one horn however, was not very appealing at all really.

The bat-like demonic beast shrieked, whirling back around and unleashing the strongest sonic screech he could. The supersonic waves visibly distorted the air in a cone, the atmosphere thickened with volcanic ash, whilst the shockwaves began cracking the rocky landscape below. His opponent instead just continued advancing, literally walking through the cone of destruction that would deafen most anything living. The lava elemental didn’t quite constitute a typical definition of living however, lacking eardrums to rupture and blood vessels to vibrate.

Their stony exterior was fractured in places by the sound waves, and that did spur a reaction. The wide, froggish jaws parted in a bellowing roar emanating from the golem’s internal furnace that sounded like a stoked pyre. In a motion surprising for its bulk, Obsidius barreled forward and leapt multiple times its height off the ground. Catching Camazotz by the tail, all 78,000 tons of the mutant’s mass acted upon the titan to yank him out of the air.

Camazotz was no weakling. But his opponent had been a completely unexpected variable. There had been no prior knowledge of the mutation or what it could do, for it hadn’t been present on the surface or much less existed during the ancient past. If the bat titan knew of Obsidius’ capabilities prior he very well might have had far more success. Still, the end result spoke up for itself once the elemental got a hold of the bat after catching Camazotz intruding upon the space it had claimed.
***

King Ghidorah landed several hundred meters away just in time to see the end of the fight, amused at the entertainment. Camazotz was swung back and forth by his tail, repeatedly beaten into the ground like a bat-shaped club before going still. Obsidius lifted and inspected the battered titan before throwing him down the slopes of the volcano. The defeated titan tumbled end over end until coming to a stop directly beside the onlooking King Ghidorah. The echoes of Obsidius beating its chest with the cracking smacks of stony fists on a torso, along with a reverberating roar that again sounded like a burning pyre mixed with a human cry, shot past the bemused dragon’s ears.

Camazotz was still, burned in multiple places and clearly battered. Only a slight movement in the chest with a pained, low wheeze of a groan indicated he was still alive.

King Ghidorah hissed contentedly, rattling his scales and spines upon detecting the palpitations of the power from beneath the planet nearby. He could literally taste it in the air, the energy he’d been tracking was indeed here now. This connection to the hollow beneath might have been present in the past, but was far weaker back then as to escape his notice. The tectonic activity that brought this lost land back to the surface must have opened it up further. In comparison to Rodan’s volcano, this was easily a dozen times more potent if he could get closer to the source.

One of the volcanoes was the simplest deduction, given how many were constantly erupting across the island.

King Ghidorah grunted and cast his eyes all about to scan and survey the blasted, burning lands for the tantalizing palpitations of the world’s pulse.

Yes, he could pinpoint the location further up the largest slope. The one at the heart of the lost continent and constantly spilling out charged lava in a burning river that ran all the way to the shores of the steaming seas. The Hollow Earth’s lifeblood, trace amounts as it might be, was emanating from that towering pillar of rock that dwarfed even him. It also just so happened the slopes leading up to the source of the energy coincidentally led directly to the other source of Ghidorah’s curiosity. Said curiosity of which had turned its back to him and was walking back up the slopes to the top of the volcano, not even registering or caring the dragon from the stars was there.

Obsidius was soon right back where the first invader had found him, having walked back like nothing had ever happened and having parked itself within a crevice at the top of the slopes that carved into part of the collapsed wall of the caldera. Standing still in this valley of stone walls and knee-deep in flowing lava, the mutation just stood by and absorbed the never-ending stream upwelling from below that was carried on the lava flow it was using like a bath. Its simple mind didn’t even comprehend the possibility of getting into the caldera itself to figure out the source. Figuring out complex cause-and-effect such as that was beyond the golem’s faculties. As far as the elemental was concerned, it had followed the upwell of energy from the lithosphere to here and had a near never-ending buffet in the magma being pushed out.

It had only moved when the annoying flying thing had gotten too close to its new territory and interrupted it. Obsidius didn’t even care nor had the capacity for emotion to have enough spite towards Camazotz to care. The intruder had been removed and it went right back to feeding.

Something else was approaching now, but Obsidius didn’t even care. If it got too close the golem would give it the same treatment. Rain started to fall from the sky, instantly vaporizing and misting the moment it touched the scalding golem’s body and river. The surrounding heat was soon so high that most drops didn’t even touch the ground or the mutation’s rocky exterior, turning back into vapor from the force of convecting thermals in the air.

King Ghidorah landed after a few lazy wingbeats to propel him off the slopes of the volcano. He could’ve flown over and gone to the caldera directly, but the curiosity of what he thought was an inactive titan had gotten his attention. That this unknown giant whom Ghidorah assumed was just a titan he hadn’t encountered in the past had proven themselves a capable fighter by besting Camazotz, who had been easily within the top ten or so most powerful titans in the bygone age, was a bonus.

The dragon observed how Obsidius was simply standing in the lava flow a few hundred meters away, taking no action but clearly noticing him before making his intentions clear. King Ghidorah sucked in a great volume of ashy air and released his echoing cry, the death song of the three storms reverberating across the island as his growing hurricane shook the heavens high above. The restatement of his Alpha call declaring his status and dominion. As with the others, he would permit Obsidius’ life for the now to do his bidding. Remake this world, destroy the pests and those who opposed him; and surrender to him domination of the realm.

The call shook the whole island and many a giant beast, some once considered gods, around the world obeyed. Cowed by the demon from beyond which had assumed rulership of the world.

The last echoes of the call eventually petered out and King Ghidorah gradually looked forward to his new subordinate. Obsidius just stood still as a statue through the whole display and continued to do so afterwards.

King Ghidorah was not of Earth, but he did bear an beast-like capacity for emotion like its inhabitants. And the look across all three faces could be best described as perturbed as three sets of eyes glared forward. A momentary pause to look for a response found none in the magma mutation. They were just standing there right where Ghidorah had found them, passively absorbing the very energy he’d come here to claim from this otherwise worthless rock.

Making sure to spread his wings wide and tower over the golem at a distance, King Ghidorah made his grandeur well known. The raging storm, the cowed titans ravaging mankind, and the greatness of his span; the very world obeyed him now and Obsidius was to follow the same. The golem had proven its might and could be most useful in the campaign of domination for this planet, if they would bow down and join their new king.

Obsidius just stood forwards, less facing Ghidorah and more keeping its back to the caldera and the flowing latent power. A bit of magma even seemed to drool from its blank face, like it had gone limp or nonresponsive.

Ghidorah did not hide an annoyed sneer. Falling back on knowledge that the various titans of this world had various expressions and degrees of intelligence, the new king of the monsters wrote off the odd behavior as agreement from a dullard. Obsidius had not made any hostile motions towards him despite clearly brutalizing Camazotz, so Ghidorah chalked up their nonresponse to compliance. He could certainly kill the mild annoyance, but they might make for a useful subordinate yet like how Rodan had at the scourging of the northern continent.

Slow-in-the-head subordinates were put aside as a non-issue for now, the caldera beckoned. Striding forward, King Ghidorah made for the opening to the volcano’s maw that went right past Obsidius’ post. He stopped mid stride when the golem got in front of his path and let out the same territorial roar as he had upon defeating Camazotz. Up until now the golem had been very noncommunicative but the notion they were espousing now was pretty evident, for they’d let none pass by them to their caldera; kingly monster or not.

King Ghidorah hissed in discontent, snarling his exposed ivories and rattling tail quills. Rearing up on his back legs, the One Who Is Many made his intentions more thorough for this apparent moronic titan. A wingspan a quarter of a kilometer long was spread as he towered over Obsidius. His awesome power was evident in his radiating scales and glimmering lights built up behind his flesh, trails of energy visible as crackling strands of lightning along his necks and threatening to escape his maws. In tandem with its master’s lightning, the hurricane intensified its winds into ravaging gusts that whipped across the lost continent.

So strong were the gales that they, combined with the falling torrents of rain, caused masses of smoke and steam to choke up the airspace of the whole landmass. Rocks shuddered and fell over, lightning ripped the sky apart with flashes, the heavens became a near constant booming of thunder, the limp Camazotz slid down the long mountain slopes, and the follow-up Alpha call was heard around the world.

Ghidorah’s display of grandeur and power carried a strong warning. Obsidius would yield. It had respectable power and fought with the strength of many a monster, it would join Ghidorah’s crusade of conquest and would see to an end to the current world. All other titans had already done so, as all on this planet would as he re-forged it in his own image. The message and display was perfectly clear to anyone with a working brain.

The golem was to yield and join its new king, or be destroyed where it stood as all others could and would eventually be.

Obsidius just stood there through the whole display. Several very long moments passed before the interrupting golem snapped to action with its own roar yet again, reiterating the prior message that none shall pass beyond it. This was its island, its power source, and it didn’t know nor care about anything beyond its new home.

But for all of Obsidius’ literally brainless fueled bravado, there was one surefire way to get someone down and out in Ghidorah’s memory.

The charge of energy King Ghidorah had brought up however, was not just for an intimidation display. Three maws parted and unleashed their torrents, Gravity Beams smashing into Obsidius’ chest and knocking the golem into the rocky slope of the volcano. Electrical energy conducted off the concussive force of the beams coursed over Obsidius’ body. King Ghidorah continued the onslaught for several seconds before cutting off the flow to modulate his energy and having felt like he’d made his point. Very few proved resilient against his onslaught and if this was how he needed to assert his status so that the imbecile understood, so be it. If they survived that, they must be useful.

He still made a gleeful point to blast the downed golem several more times with quick salvos that further knocked it over, casually firing a few more bursts out of one side head as he moved past Obsidius’ dogged guard posting. Obsidius fell over backwards end over end before doing something not even Ghidorah frankly expected even with his long list of victims.

The lava elemental, thrown backwards as electrical energy coursed over it, curled up into a ball and rolled about. They shifted around their momentum back the way they’d come and were now rapidly rolling towards King Ghidorah despite the blasts. The blazing Gravity Beams were still registering, but it was becoming quickly apparent they had a greatly diminished effect on the golem’s heavily insulated and blazing body. The kinetic impact of the beams was being felt, but the energy and electrical discharge were being virtually negated. Obsidius did not have any nerves or muscles to fry, and adding more heat to its body really didn’t do anything.

Obsidius continued to roll directly at King Ghidorah at increasing speed until barreling directly into the larger kaiju. Even if the golem weighed significantly less, the sturdiness of its body and built-up momentum was enough to bowl over the three-headed dragon. Obsidius uncurled from its tight ball atop the invader, raising its burly arms upwards and smashing stony fists into Ghidorah’s chest. The force of strength was more than enough to be felt by the large dragon, as the two started tumbling down the mountain slope.

In total vertigo of being upended and spun about, their backs crashing through ancient ruins and recent lava tubes, the quarreling giants fumbled about many hundreds of meters in their melee. Obsidius connected a solid backhand smack to one of Ghidorah’s heads, knocking several teeth out before the great dragon smashed either side of the golem’s body with the great hands forming his wings being swung inwards. The force was sufficient to crack areas of Obsidius’ rocky body, and keep the previously stubbornly taciturn golem audible with its angered roaring.

Seizing a brief opening, King Ghidorah grabbed onto Obsidius’ upper arms with his tails and wrenched the golem backwards off him. With some space freed up Ghidorah braced both of his taloned feet against the meddler’s chest and kicked back with great force.

Obsidius was already lighter than the giant dragon, slightly more than half the mass and relying mostly on close quarters and far greater than average physical strength to engage in the melee. To say the lava elemental went flying when the giant titan almost punted the mutation would be an understatement. Careening upwards through the air in an arc, Obsidius came crashing back to earth with a tremendous impact which left ash from the volcanoes shaken from the ground. The magma golem mutation had landed on top of a large volcanic vent, the broad edge of which directly connected with the golem’s shoulder between the seams of rock composing its exoskeleton. A loud crack of splitting stone was audible even over the boom of 78,000 tons hitting terra firma.

King Ghidorah managed to break his backwards fumble with his wings, flapping erratically to stop his fall and get his feet underneath them. They had been fighting virtually down the entire length of the mountain slopes and the invader was now back at the shoreline, amidst the steam and broil where the sea water met the lava flows.

Through the haze, he could see Obsidius rise. However, their fall hadn’t been an affair they recovered from unscathed. The golem’s left shoulder, the one that had taken the impact, was bent at an abnormal angle; with lava flowing out of the seam between the rocky shoulder and torso far more than on the right side. Whether one could call it bleeding or not was subjective, but Obsidius had been damaged.

It’s just that the golem barely even seemed to notice. Instead it was turning around and walking right back to its caldera again. Not retreating to seek power or a home field advantage. It was just about-facing and marching back to its designated spot like there wasn’t a dragon twice its size not a few hundred meters away.

A mind as alien as Ghidorah’s was difficult to comprehend and describe in succinctly human terms, even by the standards of such inhuman titans which roamed this world. But one could perhaps swear they saw a distinct twinge of annoyance in his twitching brows, right before the salvo of Gravity Beams smashed into Obsidius from behind.

Struck across the shoulders and its damaged left arm, the golem promptly doubled over and face planted into the volcanic slope in an uproar of shattered rock and accumulated ash. Soon enough, splashes of lava from a breached magma chamber came spilling out. King Ghidorah continued the salvo for several long moments before cutting off the torrent.

The rubble and debris thrown upwards slowly started to rain down across the volcanic slopes, some swallowed up by the new river of magma spilling out from the hole Obsidius had been blasted into. The dragon beat his enormous wingspan, blowing away the smoke, dust, and ash to reveal the mass of fallen and broken stones. Sharp ridges of broken igneous ores and obsidian glass oozed glowing lava flows like a gaping wound.

A gaping wound which lacked a body, just a cavity in the ground Obsidius had been blasted into. There was stillness and quiet, nothing but the trembling earth from the erupting island and the flows of ashy winds as Ghidorah’s storm continued to grow overhead. High above, lightning struck the pillars of ash gushing from the calderas, arching spires of electricity conducting and seemingly clashing with the sooty air and fiery pyroclasts.

Ghidorah detected the shaking earth intensifying and didn’t fall for it. The dragon fired into the cavity Obsidius had dug itself into, causing tremors to burst across and tear open the ground in all directions from the kinetic force. Lightning spewed out from several fissures before it was shouted out by Obsidius’ telltale roar.

But when the golem showed itself, it wasn’t still at the point of impact. The ground underneath Ghidorah split open suddenly and rocky hands grabbed the dragon’s feet. King Ghidorah cut off his energetic assault and shrieked. He turned the seizing grab around, stabbing his talons into the stony exterior of Obsidius’ forelimbs and rapidly beating his wings. Like pulling a stubborn vegetable from the ground, Ghidorah pried Obsidius out from under the craggy earth as the two mutually held onto one another.

The golem had clearly been affected by the salvos of Gravity Beams, but not nearly as much as was typical. Very few short of Godzilla himself could withstand a three-pronged barrage and get back up so quickly. Obsidius’ exterior was cracked in numerous spots and the damage to their left shoulder more obvious in how more rocky skin had been blown off; but it didn’t seem to affect strength or stubbornness all that much.

Lack of organs to electrocute nor watery liquids to conduct the energy had some advantages. Aside from getting knocked around by the concussive force, Obsidius had weathered the storm admirably.

The golem dangled beneath the dragon, still hanging on regardless of the distance from the ground getting higher and higher. Ghidorah, having noticed the stubborn resilience to his rays, opted for plan B.

Like some kind of parody of a crane with a dangling wrecking ball, Ghidorah swooped low across the blasted lands and aimed for the ruins from a bygone time. The ash laden masonry which had withstood millennia beneath pillars of sea and in the shadow of burning mountains were no match for the alien king using the most recent nuisance for demolition. Obsidius blankly stared up at Ghidorah with an eyeless face as it was used to smash through building after building, even with the direct impacts aimed at its weakened left shoulder.

Foreign as he was to this world, Ghidorah had understood the native titans well. How their hierarchy worked as a means to seize power, how their function as natural shapers of the landscape could be used to his own ends; and how to inflict death to those that spurred trouble with no use and how to inflict pain to those who might prove useful alive.

So the fact his opponent seemed nearly unreactive, both to getting their forelimbs stabbed into by Ghidorah’s talons and unpulsed by the dragon slamming Obsidius into the face of a volcano to use them as a plow across the stony face, implied a few things. Either this one was colossally courageous in the face of such matters to a degree unseen before, thinking themselves invincible. Or they were too much of a looney to react properly.

Thought of which was interrupted. Ghidorah had just bashed the stubborn golem into another rocky face, carving a gorge with its body in the process amidst a shower of debris and magma, when the new King of the Titans opted to loose his energized judgment on the pest. But just as the glowing radiance of his might built up in each maw, the power left him. Ghidorah felt his whole body seize up to a degree. Electrical energy arching across the gilded one’s wings raced across their span and traveled towards the body, going downward.

Right into Obsidius’ hands, where the power flows changed from crackling yellow to burning red from the essence absorption. The golem was draining his energy stores on contact, an ability not entirely unlike Ghidorah’s draining bite he so often used to top off his power whilst weakening a foe. Suddenly the sharpened, recurved talons that were dug into Obsidius’ body to hold it close were not so welcome to the feet attached to them.

Monster Zero loosed a wrathful outcry as his blazing pupils contracted and he dove towards the broken face of a volcanic vent, previously shattered into a jagged point of pure obsidian like a skywards facing sword. Obsidius, siphoning the stolen power to its gaping maw, seemed to almost swell up like a balloon to a degree. The cracks and vents in its stony surface showed inner magma lighting up brighter and more fiery.

What came spewing out from the golem’s maw wasn’t an energetic beam as much as it was a fiery column of vomited magma. King Ghidorah cackled and shrieked when the liquid rock spewed over his golden body. The greatness of his armor shielded him from the heat beyond some scalding where the lava breached underneath or around the scales, but the spattering of lava caused problems with them being so high up. The cooler air and rain left the vomited inferno to rapidly cool, solidifying across much of Ghidorah’s chest and wings. The dragon’s great strength was more than sufficient to crack and smash out of the loose bindings of half-cooled lava, but his balance had been disrupted and the alien Titan soon plummeted.

In a full free-fall, Ghidorah spun in midair as he felt Obsidius clamber up his body to get at his face. The igneous golem, ignorant of their plummet, swelled up again to spew out another Inferno at point-blank range. Twin tails seized the golem around the neck and headrests, constricting tightly and diverting Obsidius’ aim aside. In all his fury, Ghidorah chomped down on the golem’s left shoulder whilst wrenching at it with a leg. With fired Gravity Beams spewing into the gap between the limb and body just as they made impact with the obsidian spire, the collision and energy created an explosion that could be seen across the island.

When the smoke cleared, the spire was completely leveled and shattered to rubble. King Ghidorah emerged from the smoke, cackling at his success whilst swooping over the rise of a volcano to glide and land not far away from where he’d started this ordeal to begin with. Clutched in one of his maws was a torn free hunk of rock and slag approximating an arm.

Obsidius pulled itself free from the rubble, cracked and leaking magma from numerous wounds, and noticeably lighter with the loss of its left arm. King Ghidorah arched and snapped his neck outwards, tossing the limb mockingly at what he took for the island guardian’s feet.

Obsidius tilted its head down to observe where its arm had been thrown to, the slow hissing of its physical better echoing across the island. The igneous behemoth fell to its knees, using its remaining arm to steady itself and keep from crumbling over as magma leaked from the open cavity that had once been its shoulder. Stony fingers curled around the dismembered wrist before the living volcano started to stumble forwards. Its remaining hand curled around the torn-off-arm’s wrist. Either it was dying or kneeling, either which was good enough for the new alpha titan. They had fought well enough to prove useful if they lived through their wounds, but this was over. If they stood aside and accepted fate, Ghidorah might yet have a use for them in his gathering for the extermination of mankind and reshaping of this disgusting world.

King Ghidorah took to the wing, spreading the vast grandeur of his span outwards and resuming his dominion of the air. He had triumphed over the island guardian, and asserted his dominion as alpha over this land as he would the rest of the planet. Flying past the defeated nuisance, Ghidorah tasted the energy in the air coming from the center of this lost continent. Something at the heart of this place beckoned with power and he would have his price. He would-

Detect rapid movement in the air and turn his left head just in time to see an approximately Obsidius shaped blur moving rapidly towards him. A shockwave continued to reverberate across the lava rivers and volcanic ground the golem had sprung from in a mighty leap. Seeing them hefting something in their remaining arm, Ghidorah reflexively tried to fire off a torrent of gravity beams from his left and central head upon Obsidius but only managed to get off a glancing blow across the igneous golem’s resilient chest.

They just kept coming, treating having an arm blown off entirely like it was but a scratch. And one they intended to repay.

The sky splitting crack of Obsidius, putting everything they had into the swing along with their own momentum, clobbering one of the dragon’s heads whilst using its own dismembered arm as a club was not necessarily as much of a glancing hit. The dragon from the cosmos instantly lost a third of his vision when the leftmost head took the full impact, bone fragments and gore flying everywhere in a fleshy explosion. The sheer force also shattered the torn-free limb as a shower of pebbles and magma raining down on the ground beneath them.

They tumbled through the air, Obsidius latched onto the One Who is Many with its remaining arm wrapping around the base of the necks. In a full freefall, the combined mass of over 200,000 tons went hurtling closer and closer to the volcano. There had been enough distance to build up a great amount of speed and the flailing of Ghidorah’s wings had broken the fall somewhat, but being knocked backwards and with a thrashing angry golem on top of them had made it all but impossible to course correct mid-flight.

They crashed into the very river of lava Ghidorah had originally found Obsidius standing in.

Usually, Ghidorah was quite durable against extreme heat. He had grappled with and bested the fire demon while also withstanding many a blast by the fallen king of the monsters; and earlier he’d shrugged off Obsidius’ Inferno of a projectile attack with minimum damage he instantly regenerated back. Ghidorah’s golden scales were a near impenetrable barrier, and rapid healing helped negate away most wounds that could breach his ten thousandfold shields of armor. However, sudden mass blunt force trauma took time to mend. And his scales and underlying dermis were substantially more durable than the exposed innards of his left head had when they hit the molten rock.

The instant surge of pain was easily the greatest Ghidorah had ever experienced since waking up free of that ice. It even gave some of his past battles a run for their money. The clashes with giants on this world and others, tri-horned gods, flying storms, and many-limbed demons in every menagerie imaginable. All had been conquered so thoroughly until this planet started to give him far more trouble than it otherwise should have.

Flesh broiled into the vapors and bone shattered under the intense heat. The highly viscous liquid rock below went down Ghidorah’s left throat and scorched his innards. It was only by seizing up his muscles and letting the blazing agony cauterize his tissue did the dragon keep the lifeblood of the planet he had come to conquer from spilling into his chest cavity. The traces of latent power from the Hollow Earth did nothing to heal back the scalding damage, especially with the lava often solidifying and clogging tissue with hunks of rock.

Swimming through molten lava was even more difficult than trying to get free of the watery grave Godzilla tried to pull him into earlier, but there was something to be said about manic and frantic strength when the situation called for it. Ghidorah was just equal parts enraged and annoyed he found himself in such a situation. Monster Zero came bursting free of the lava, golden wings and brilliant body marred and singed in multiple places. Fiery ichors of the planet were sent flying in every direction in a raining of igneous hell.

His wing beats were frantic and uncoordinated, partially because of what amounted to his nervous system still being in complete chaos from all sense of balance being thrown off. Rapidly cooling and solidifying lava was still lodged in his scales beyond the shattered head, between his joints, and embedded in the wounds scattered upon Ghidorah’s body and wings. Chunks that would constitute whole boulders were being shattered constantly as the flesh they were stuck in flexed and shifted with the requirements of flight. Every time they did, pieces would just get driven in deeper and cauterize the flesh around them. Trying to expel them with regeneration would take time and focus, not to mention up and removing chunks of tissue to purge the obstructions.

The once three crowned king was missing a third of those now. The golem had actually managed to meaningfully damage the foe which had taken their arm.

Ghidorah’s leftmost head was a visceral mess to say the least of things. Beyond what was likely a shattered jawbone and some broken vertebrae sticking out of tumorous mass, the head was completely unrecognizable from halfway down the neck up. A mishmash of blackened and cauterized flesh, shattered bone, and rapidly cooling lava stuck inside the tissue and not letting it heal properly. The fact that it kept thrashing about and twitching at its base was as revolting to see as it was disgusting to feel.

Flying with that unsightly mess was hard enough as is, but the stubbornly refusing to die golem was still latched on across Ghidorah’s chest.

King Ghidorah split his stormy sky with a combination of a shrieking outrage and roar of hatred. Of any opponent the alien titan had faced, of every conquered foe, they at least made sense in their grandeur and how they had given him trouble. Those that called down the fires of heavens, where the primacy of animal life as a living juggernaut, and so many who had been revered as or even perhaps thought themselves gods. They were mighty, they were majestic or horrifying in equal measure, great and powerful foes of renown from the bygone time when giants roamed the worlds.

The burdensome golem was an insignificant pile of half melted rocks that barely anyone else noticed. Much less would assume much of. And yet they were giving them trouble far beyond their stature.

Ghidorah had broken worlds before, and a world was nothing but a domain to do with as he pleased. And he would have no use for this troublesome idiot in his dominion, there was only one purpose Obsidius would serve as all otherwise useless rocks would serve him.

Grabbing onto the golem’s chest with his taloned feet as he coiled constructing tails around the lava monster’s legs, the cackling Ghidorah whirled his two surviving heads around and bit down upon the stony shoulders. Whatever sort of life force it was that animated Obsidius, for there certainly was no living creature underneath all of that burning rock, it still had energy. And energy, as was all creation, was nothing but food to the alpha of alphas. Red lines traveled out of Obsidius and into King Ghidorah’s body. The burly golem paused before trembling, letting out a low bellow that sounded almost like a foghorn.

King Ghidorah growled gleefully. Finally, he was hearing something of a reaction that amounted to pain.

Ghidorah clenched down harder, talons digging into Obsidius’ rocky exterior as his jaws thrashed back and forth to try and rend what amounted to tissue underneath the stone. It was more a reaction based on his previous torture of past foes then anything he thought would actually register to the troublesome stone, but Ghidorah hardly cared about that at this point. His pride and status as alpha had been wounded arguably more than his head was and he was inclined to do anything possible to ensure Obsidius’ dim mind registered the agony before it was snuffed out.

Already the king from the fallen stars could feel the power of his foe flow into his body as it was drained away from Obsidius. New tissue was rapidly growing across the perforations in his wings, helping to pry free some of the stubborn fragments of rock and solidified lava that had become lodged in the flesh. Cauterized tissue was slowly but surely being ejected. Once he was done, he might’ve even had enough to make sure no lasting wounds of this embarrassing confrontation ever happened.

Only his leftmost neck was being burdensome. The sheer mass of the damaged tissue and chaotic mishmash of heat cracked bone and solidified lava would be almost impossible to fully eject just by cellular growth. He’d have to tear it off at the base and fully regenerate it. The surging power he could detect at the heart of this landmass would be more than sufficient if the need came. Obsidius’ body went slack under his draining influence.

The golem weakly turned its head into the direction of Ghidorah’s rightmost cranium. Whatever it had giving individual input, for the eyeless golem didn’t have any obvious optics, seemed to register at least how it was being attacked. Obsidius raised its remaining arm on the right, shaking all the while before grasping the central head by the neck latched onto its other shoulder.
Ghidorah hissed contently at feeling the once admittedly Herculean strength his most stubborn foe had subsided, weakening by the second and unable to grasp with nearly as much force as it once had. Even now the burning lights visible at the golem’s joints that signified the magma flows within were starting to dim and solidify. The arm weakly and futilely tugged at that neck to try and dislodge it before slumping against it in a loose grip.

With nothing else holding onto Ghidorah, the limp golem was suspended in the air by the alien dragon’s power alone. Nothing but a lifeless rock that would shatter upon hitting the ground like the world’s most unsightly statue.

But just as Ghidorah’s grip started to loosen and bear witness to such a satisfying sight, the last gasps of the lost continent’s golem reacted. Obsidius turned its head and bit down on Ghidorah’s central neck. The bite was beyond ineffectual, toothless jaws not managing to breach the skin and there was no massive vomiting of lava like before. But instead, the exact same kinds of reddish lights that had been flowing out of Obsidius into his better, started to appear in reverse.

The golem was born out of uncanny energies embedding themselves into the lithosphere, giving animate energy and power to the lifeblood of this planet. Whether it was just inanimate magma before or perhaps some kind of silicon-based lifeform living within the mantle, the exact specifics of its origin were irrelevant beyond energy itself being its lifeblood. Its animation. Its food. That’s what drew Obsidius to this island to begin with, passively drawing power from the upwell that emanated through the lost continent’s many volcanoes.

Whatever consciousness, basic and virtually autonomous as it was, that propelled the igneous golem could comprehend the massive amount of energy within Ghidorah. It felt it before in passing and now was trying to seek it again. Like some kind of bizarre feedback loop, Obsidius latched onto Ghidorah and withdrew power back into itself. The magma monster’s arm, reinvigorated as the fiery lava ignited across the seams of its rocky body, grabbed onto King Ghidorah’s central neck and similarly drew in power at all points of contact.

King Ghidorah constricted the golem further, snarling and biting down harder to split the igneous rock forming the golem’s shell. He siphoned off its power and took it into his body. Where the visible lines of red light went up his necks, into his chest, and then right back into Obsidius from its points of contact.

The battle resumed anew, Obsidius draining Ghidorah as Ghidorah drained power out of Obsidius. At multiple points the conducted energy flows were traveling up the body of one before immediately circling back to the other. Ghidorah likely had a more potent version of the ability, but the high resilience the conducting power Obsidius’ exterior had shown before shrugging off gravity beams made his vampiric abilities go up against a high resistance. Meanwhile the golden scales of Ghidorah meant the exact opposite, with the very same conductivity that often went to draining away ambient energy and creating his storms effectively opening up a buffet for the golem.

Several minutes passed in an utter stalemate.

King Ghidorah had gone up against many a foe. So many that even when confronted with something brand-new as animate magma, the One Who is Many could often draw upon experience or his own raw power to make a good gauge as to what he was up against. A lot of Obsidius was obvious, being a big bruiser when a high tolerance for heat was self-evident. Being able to spring great distances off the ground, having surprisingly high movement speed and pulling off unorthodox attacks like rolling into a ball or vomiting lava was surprising but acceptable. Being able to drain away vitality and energy was not completely out of left-field.

It was like going up against an unpredictable hodgepodge of different monsters, the golem made no sense! And now it was doing everything it could to stay latched on to him, despite both of them being very ineffectual at actually damaging each other right now. Obsidius couldn’t be choked out and was too durable to be crushed. It likewise however had no means of directly attacking in the position they were in right now, having to use its only remaining arm as a means of hanging on. Ghidorah meanwhile didn’t have the physical strength to try and rend this pest with legs and tails alone, and if he unlatched his jaws for too long Obsidius might start draining away too much.

Neither weakening nor strengthening past the equalization point they were at when this draining nonsense started, King Ghidorah snarled after realizing he’d been caught in one of the most ridiculous deadlocks ever for several long minutes. Obsidius didn’t even try to attack anymore, just remaining latched on like a leech and not realizing nor particularly caring about its own predicament.

It didn’t thrash, it didn’t claw, it didn’t even try vomiting out another gout of magma point-blank. It only registered something resembling a food source and just stayed put, presumably just like it had on this island when Ghidorah detected and now tasted its power flowing through the lava monster’s system. King Ghidorah practically heard white noise at the dumbstruck realization.

The primordial, millions if not billions year old collective minds that composed King Ghidorah’s near incomprehensible consciousness perhaps now understood the truth of the matter.

Obsidius was not the guardian of this island, nor was it even necessarily part of the titan pantheon he had usurped. It really hadn’t refused to bend the knee out of some kind of bravado, nor resisted his alpha call as a challenge. It hadn’t even been halting his advance towards the energetic core of this land out of some protective duty. There wasn’t even some grand intent behind Obsidius proving surprisingly durable against the new alpha titan’s abilities, like it had been called forth or created specifically to counter him.

This igneous ignoramus had been acting so brave because it was an absolute looney and was too stupid to submit, let alone follow commands.

It just wanted energy as food and was only acting out of reaction. He had literally spent the better part of a day arguing with and wailing on a rock.

Ghidorah’s body tensed, boiling outrage coursing through every vein as the now two headed dragon shot upwards into the sky. Lightning started to conduct and strike his form, shocking and helping reinvigorate him as it lit up his dazzling scales with electric brilliance. Obsidius didn’t even really notice the electrical onslaught, his insulating body not even registering it. Ghidorah intended to give him something to react to as he drew forth the power of his storm.

The golden destroyer of worlds became the eye of his hurricane, lightning constantly striking his body from every angle and visibly charging it. The intensity of his magnificence became blinding for most to behold, crackling power arcing between every horn, every scale, and branch of his wings. The intensity was visible through the burning orbs of his remaining four eyes, as well as the increasingly erratic movements of the drake’s left head. Chaotic power was visible beneath his veins and throats, engendering a messy attempt at regeneration that attempted to regrow atop the embedded slag as much as it tried to expel it.

Unlatching from the volcanic titan’s body, blinding wrath emanated from Ghidorah’s two remaining heads. The raw power was brilliant, awe-inspiring like a glimmering star within the storm clouds. Obsidius had finally gone still and stopped draining power from Ghidorah’s body, tilting its head up and gazing upon its own demise.

The edges of Ghidorah’s lips curled up in maniacal glee. He still wasn’t quite sure how exactly this giant saw the world with no eyes and what detection means they had, but they clearly registered the grandeur of their status. It was only moments before their demise did Obsidius’ idiotic mind finally understand what was in front of it. Ghidorah opened the gates of his maws to unleash the floodwaters of crackling destruction.

Just as Obsidius grabbed onto the dragon’s face by the throat and lunged. Their hand closed down around Ghidorah’s central head tightly and their jaw shot open to its fullest extent. The last thing that Ghidorah’s central point of view registered was being shot directly down the wide gullet of the volcanic monster right before its internal magma perforated its eyes.

A molten core of equal temperature to the internal heart of the planet itself at over 1300°C was one of the last things the head could actually glimpse before the nerve endings were burned off. Obsidius shoved its frog-like mouth down upon the neck, burying it halfway down its gullet. That it just swallowed a combined kinetic force that helped blow its arm off earlier was perhaps not even considered. Fiery lines of energy started to conduct off of the swallowed head and into the volcanic golem’s body.

Either the golem was indeed smarter than Ghidorah gave it credit and had figured out a way around the dragon’s regeneration whilst weaponizing its resilience to energy based attacks. Or it was just going after the tasty looking energy source it spotted right in front of it. Obsidius didn’t vocalize which it was.

The kingly world destroyer meanwhile promptly became unbridled chaos. The heavily damaged left head completely ignited, lines of golden energy cracking through the misshapen stony and bone mass as the sheer kinetic force ejected several hundred tons of solidified magma and cauterized tissue clogging the throat. The upper end of the mangled extremity exploded with a crack, gore and rock flying everywhere as the misfired Gravity Beam went spiraling off into the storm in any direction possible without a head to point the torrent.

The rightmost head swung around, unleashing one of the strongest Gravity Beams the Alpha Titan had ever loosed directly into the stubborn imbecile that refused to die. Even Obsidius’ highly energy resistant and insulative stony body couldn’t withstand the blast’s kinetic force. It bore into the rocky chest, shattering igneous ores like a high impact drill. Obsidius started to splinter and fracture, the beam gouging through and rocketing out of the golem’s back.

The central head, too durable to instantly melt inside Obsidius’ internal furnace but rapidly becoming skeletal, attempted to fire. One could practically see a sun form inside of the magma, especially through the visible holes punched into the rocky body with the dismembered arm and opened back. The intensity oscillated back and forth, Obsidius absorbing too much power initially to let the salvo out. But if the golem was determined from its own stupidity, the usurping king and demon from the stars was determined for other reasons far more cognitive. Eventually, Obsidius could not hold back the flow.

The internal eruption was not pleasant, a gout of Gravity Beams shooting out from Obsidius’ chest before swinging upwards. Trails of red energy, what could be absorbed in the golem’s attempt to feast, trailed after the golden explosion. Obsidius’ chest from the torso up to its jaw was blasted open, fragments shooting off into the storm.

With surprising speed for its form however, Obsidius’ life spark was not quite snuffed out in an instant. It had absorbed much power from the alien invader and had enough fuel for one last act. King Ghidorah’s right head’s eyes bulged in their sockets as the jawless visage of Obsidius turned towards it, the half burned off and slagged remains of the central head still flopping around inside the open chest cavity and throat. Stolen golden energy crackled inside that furnace before being vomited out. The deluge of molten rock, fiery energy, and parts of Ghidorah’s own melted central cranium poured over the right head.

King Ghidorah fought back against the stream, so incredibly through his last nerve dealing with Obsidius’ brand of stubbornness. At this point the best the golem could do was literally bleed on the king, but that itself was nothing but chaos and agonizing trouble. Golden energy, shot out of the now mostly-destroyed central head, blasted through the magma stream despite the slag covering a good chunk of Ghidorah’s body. The central head’s blind fire connected with the right head’s directed Gravity Beams to cross streams with the left’s wild firing.

The crossed streams’ epicenter intensified in tandem with the point-blank Inferno Obsidius had unleashed. And everything went white.

The storm shattered for kilometers in a span. A massive shockwave blasting the clouds apart and dividing the eye of the hurricane. Plummeting several hundred meters like two comets, blazing giants crashed back into the island; throwing up thousands of tons of rock and debris on their respective impacts. And for what felt like the first time since Ghidorah had established his dominion, there was calm in the storm.

It did not last too long, when more earth was heaved aside to release King Ghidorah from the crater he had made.

To call his grandeur of form dampened was an understatement. His left neck was now completely gone halfway up, ballooning out like some kind of grotesque parody of a flower after managing to blow off what remained of its head. The central head was virtually skeletal, still covered in molten slag and warped bone as it hung down from its base. The right head was still active and responsive, but all of the tissue down to the bone had melted on the inner side to force an eye closed. Its jaw flopped about uselessly for several seconds before being snapped back into place, though it was still heat warped and would require regrowth. All across his body scales had been melted or completely burned off, and most of the wing membranes had been perforated.

Gathering himself up at the shore of the island, Ghidorah looked for any signs of attack and cast his remaining vision to the other crater. No movement was found. The ocean however was a different story.

The churned surf did not bring forth Obsidius. Instead, far out at sea, three rows of spines started to jut out of the water line amongst crashing wakes, followed closely by the Argo craft and many military vessels inhabited by the pests. King Ghidorah instantly recoiled at the sight of the former, raising up his great wings in a threat display as they had been presented at Antarctica. Standing up straight however, the dragon was quickly privy to his hobbled stance, ruined wings, and missing two thirds of his vision. Whatever effectiveness his intimidation display he had before against his greatest of foes, it certainly wasn’t working now. The usurping Titan didn’t know if this was the same Godzilla that had somehow recovered from his defeat, or another equally powerful challenger to his throne.

What he did know was that he was in no condition to fight after this disastrous fiasco of a side venture. Whatever power this lost continent had within it was not worth all the trouble it had given him striking down its resident. It certainly wouldn’t be fixed dying in a lopsided confrontation now.

Taking to the wing, King Ghidorah flew up into the storm and withdrew from this burdensome land.

As he flew away however, Monster Zero soon noticed movement in the corner of his eye. One that caused him to shout out the thundering of his storm with an enraged roar of flabbergasted frustration. Obsidius sat back up out of the crater the magma golem had crashed into. Missing an arm, with its entire front chest up to the mouth blasted open, and with one of its legs almost completely shattered from the impact; it still nevertheless tried to rise and face him. It even had the gall to begin advancing after him, either seeing the invader as one of the best energy sources the golem had ever partaken in or being bound and determined to finish their fight.

King Ghidorah loosed several chaotic, barely aimed Gravity Beams in its direction before soaring away with haste, striking the volcano slopes several times to carve canyons into the rock and divert the mutation’s advance. Obsidius stopped upon reaching the river of lava it started today on and pivoted its ruined head up in the direction of the retreating dragon. It considered pursuing, but a combination of the winged intruder’s pace and having to go into water finally put a stop to the golem’s decision-making. The idea of attacking the powerful energy source in the water now swimming after the intruder was also put aside by virtue of distance and too much water. Obsidius did not like water. It would fight anyone who intruded on its territory, but it did not like water.

The intruder was gone so there was no need to get in the water.

The battered golem completely ignored the very confused military and MONARCH craft to turn around and walk back to the heart of the lost continent. It paid no attention to the recovered and retreating Camazotz, nor to the remnants of a lost civilization Obsidius absentmindedly walked right through. Nothing got in its way until it was right back to the very spot King Ghidorah had found it in. Turning around to put its back to the radiating power of the Hollow Earth, Obsidius began to resume soaking up the energy and jumpstart its long process of self-repair.

When MONARCH later scouted out the recently emerged landmass after Ghidorah had been dealt with, they had initially been expecting to find a large amount of impressive but otherwise useless lava fields on this newly generated continent. King Ghidorah’s storm had partially lingered nearby, the lightning striking the omnipresent ash clouds billowing from the eruption sites to produce an ominous hellscape.

In time, highly fertile soils might take root across the risen land once the volcanism had died down. There had already been a lot of intrigue when some perimeter scouting detected remnants of some ancient civilization who lived on the landmass that had at once sunk and was now back above ground.

What they didn’t expect to find was an upwell of radiating energy similar to what had been detected within the earth at Skull Island and Antarctica emanating out of the central volcano. Nor the extreme difficulty in trying to survey what was later found to be a power from the Hollow Earth itself.

Rick Stanton deadpanned and threw his hands up into the air as he sat at the drone control desk, “Damn it, lost another one.”

“Did you manage to crash it into the volcano this time?” Illene Chen called out as she stood before the monitor showing what the drone had seen just before it went offline, “That’s the sixteenth.”

“Fifteenth!” Rick griped defensively, “That one with the ash cloud doesn’t count, it was still in one piece when it crashed. Want to see an instant replay on my latest error now?”

“I would, rather than you waste more of our budget,” Illene shrugged as she twirled her finger in a reverse clockwise motion.

Dr. Stanton grumbled and complied, the footage on the monitor going back to before the drone was sent off-line. It had been flying over a ravine leading to the mouth of the volcano. The scanners were detecting the energy flow was intensifying with the decreasing distance. But as soon as the aircraft had cleared the corner to get a closer look at what aerial footage could offer, a large blur came into view. The sheer heat of the volcano and the myriad of gasses vomited up by the earth distorted the viewscreen every other second, but there were several keyframes that offered a clear view.

A large, burning figure standing on the edge of the caldera. It was asymmetrical, with one arm larger than the other. The golem still bore battle scars, but it was slowly healing its wounds and regrowing the lost limb; absorbing the energy from this lost land and the physical mass of the lava it would sometimes leave its post to swim in. In another couple of weeks or months, the molten giant might be fully restored.

The frame ticked ahead, showing the exact moment when Obsidius noticed the drone get just a hair too close and react, vomiting up a mass of lava that had no doubt melted down the parts by now.

Stanton purposefully stopped the frame right as the splatter of slack was about to hit the camera.

“So! Any myths or legends you want to check over to give this big bruiser a name?” His deadpanning was not met with contempt by his company.

Chen instead touched her chin and considered her long knowledge of both mythology and history, especially now in the modern era where those two had blended together in so many ways. There was Surtur, a fiery demonic giant from Nordic tales, who fit based on the obvious fire and magma for a destructive giant. Leigong was a thunder god from central China, who had some resemblance with how the colossus often walked with lightning striking it atop its mountain domain to no effect. But, frankly speaking she could admit there was nothing in the myths about this one in particular. Not that she’d admit it to Stanton.

Between the disaster Ghidorah had unleashed, finding a lost continent the size of Texas in the Pacific was surprising enough.

Thankfully a fellow researcher had come up with a few ideas and, if the shoe fit.

“Titanus Raijin, warden of the Lost Continent,” Chen hummed with crossed arms and a smile, “Dr. Cerasini came up with the name.”

“Has a nice ring to it, been a long time coming I guess,” Stanton nodded with a shrug, “Though G-Team has taken to calling ‘mag-mouth’ there something else, especially after Dr. Lind wanted to see if that volcano they’re parked at has a Hollow Earth entrance. The NSP.”

“Which means?” Illene perked her eyebrow as Staton handed her the budget costs of all the drones they’d gone through so far.

Staton held up an empty soda can to his mouth, giving his voice a metallic muffle, “None Shall Pass.”

Winner: Obsidius