[Continued from Match 153]

He stands idly by in the darkened hull of the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, a large military transport aircraft developed by the United States. He carries the weight upon him; the parachute strapped to his back, the heavy load of the uniform weighing on his aged body, the oxygen mask, goggles, and helmet pressing against his face and head, the burden of humanity’s dying hopes on his mind.

The dark room glows with the hue of a red alarm light, with the blare to accompany it. The loud whirs of the hatch lowering, combined with the gushing high-altitude winds, deafen the wails from within. He stands there, seeing the sky from nearly over twenty-thousand feet above the surface. The shimmering sunlight bathes the swirling vortex of clouds beneath them, crackling with a spastic array of lightning bolts. He knew full well that under the clouds lie the Rocky Mountains, in the upper regions of Canada. But his target wasn’t in the rugged terrain—rather, it was several thousand feet above, dwelling in the fluffy sheets of liquid droplets and frozen crystals.

A yellow light bulb flashed, signaling him for the HAHO jump. With no hesitation, Kubal dashed to embrace the empty space and icy chill of the higher altitudes.In an instant, gravity began to take hold, dragging him to the clouds below.

The drag pushes against his freefalling form, now a couple thousand feet clear out of the C-17’s flight path. For a HAHO jump, closing in on top of the clouds would serve him enough to get where he needs to go. Fumbling for the ripcord, he pulls it, unloading the parachute with no hindrance. The force yanks at him, but it doesn’t take long for it to stabilize. Only in a matter of minutes, he will be facing one of his greatest challenges, as a soldier of human preservation.

Gently gliding down, his footwear grazes the puffy vapor. Kubal knew full well of the electrical hazard from the thunderstorm booming beneath. But that was the least of his concerns.

Dogora…

In the weeks that passed, all hell broke loose. Humanity mourned for their lost guardian, the last heir of Mothra, who perished by the hands of the Dogoras. As one drifted closer to Taiwan, the other carried itself over the Pacific Ocean. The small Pacific islands in the wake of the second Dogora’s path were consumed, added to part of its mass. Unlike their predecessor, these ones have adapted to consume more than just carbon minerals. Additionally, according to Intel reports, they are now going out of their way to devour all organic life in their way.

Now that the second one has crossed over North American borders, its first victims were on Vancouver Island. By the time the powers that be formulated a means of attack, the Dogora had already ravaged Nanaimo and Vancouver, leaving no victim behind. By the time of Kubal’s departure, it had already devastated Vernon, and current tracking shows it drifting close to Banff National Park.

The surface clouds began to rupture. The silhouette, shadowed by the gleaming sunlight, raises high into the purple sky.The wavering tentacle, tipped with feeler-like appendages, drops toward Kubal. With no means of utilizing the turbulence, he prepares himself for the inevitable. The mass of the limb alone is more than enough to crush a mere mortal man into bloody paste.

Without much thought, the tentacle instinctively slams on the puny lifeform, his mass crushed and absorbed into Dogora’s solvent form. The man that was Kubal is nothing more than a messy splatter of gory paste and shattered bones. It wasn’t long before Dogora’s chemical makeup began to digest its newest victim; before it knew it, Dogora would be resuming its destruction as if nothing ever happened.

Strangely, though, Dogora felt a tingling sensation run down the feeler near its hood. A reddened rash began to swell where it had consumed the man. It was something beyond Dogora’s comprehension; not once had any of its past prey ever had such a profound effect on its body. Once what was a rash quickly evolved into the equivalent to boiling gelatin, the lappet shriveling under the might of the intense heat.

On the surface of the chemically infused entity, the man began to reform. But he was stripped of his flesh and clothes, only leaving a living being of bone, muscles, organs, nerves, cartilage, and blood vessels screaming in sheer agony. The intensifying heat around the area transformed the trillions of Dogora cells into vapor in mere seconds.

The skinless Kubal quaked, when suddenly, large, bony protrusions jutted from his spine. From the pillars of bone, it unfurls like that of wings. Encasing the screaming Kubal, he is embraced by his own curse. A shimmering, bright light envelops his exposed body, rivaling that of the sun. The water vapor contained within the nearby clouds dissipates as a powerful shockwave pulsates from Kubal’s form.

An explosion of cellular multiplication creates strands of muscle, forming the shoulders and arms for this new body. Exponential heat sear into the bell, generating another shockwave like that of a beating heart. Hot air and fire scorches the alien jellyfish, tearing its body asunder.

Even so, the new body of Kubal continued to take form. Its arms fully developed, laced with burning muscles and tendons, gripping onto Dogora’s hood, pulling itself in. Afterward, the head came into formation, sewn together into an amalgamation of patches of flesh, tendons, and muscle. The man known as Kubal now rested within the bulbous nape on the back of the Titan’s neck. As strings of muscle mass fasten to create the chest, the skeleton continues to materialize. Enormous, spiked ribs drive into Dogora, spraying translucent chemicals from its abnormal body.

The Colossal Titan booms a bellowing, powerful roar. His yellow eyes shine brightly, contrast to the black sclera, glaring with malicious intent.

Dogora jerks unnaturally, trying to loosen the skinless giant. But the Colossal Titan persists, refusing to let go, even with his hands and ribs slowly eaten away by the solvent. The only reason he hasn’t already been assimilated is due to the superb regenerative power at his disposal, allowing the Colossal Titan to exert his body with tremendous heat. Dogora’s internal systems are overwhelmed by the heat and raging fire, shrinking faster than Dogora can grow. The once translucent bluish hue of the Dogora now blisters with an orange-yellow light. To ensure its survival, the space being summons small feelers to its aid, trying to severe the Colossal Titan’s hands and ribs. But alas, contact only resulted in near-immediate evaporation due to the intensity of the Titan’s exerting body temperature.

Unable to force the leech off of its body, the gelatinous lifeform tried to counteract the burning sensation with a scheme of its own. Opening its mantle, Dogora vacuums the thunder clouds in an effort to cool down its body. But even the mass consumption of water vapor and ice crystals yield little results. The Colossal Titan, now with most of its body reconstituted except for below the kneecaps, summons his strength and forcefully shoves the extraterrestrial leviathan to aim down. If he could piledrive this freakish monstrosity into the Canadian Rocky Mountains, he would be able to deal with the target properly.

In a last-ditch effort, before even attempting to engage its foe, Dogora detaches one of its four lengthy tentacles. If it could not survive, then a piece of it will thrive and live on. Little did Dogora realize that the Colossal Titan’s heat, still very much present within the limb, had already begun to evaporate it. With no central body to process the needed nutrients to thrive, the short-lived Dogoraspawn suffered with the intense heat until it vanished completely.

To retaliate against the Titan, Dogora lifts its gigantic tendrils to its aid. Although the smaller feelers deployed earlier dissolved, the extra mass contained should be able to hold out far better. But with most of its mass evaporated, chances were uncertain. The first of the three remaining tentacles constricted the Colossal Titan’s lower abdominal region; the second slithered around the upper chest, looping itself around the left shoulder and right armpit; the third strapped itself on the calves of the Nephilim. Applying all of its strength, Dogora squeezed the burning giant. The compression forced superheated air and blood to jettison out of its wounds. The Colossal Titan boomed an echoing holler, but tried to keep steadfast. They broke out of the puffy thunderclouds some time ago. Now it was a matter of whether he would survive the fall—or if Dogora would.

Kubal’s instincts screamed at him to protect the bulbous nape. The slithering tentacle, had it been aware of this mortal weakness, could be a very real threat. But so long as it paid no heed, Kubal wouldn’t need to worry. Using the Colossal Titan’s raw strength, the cursed man opened its maw as wide as it would allow, only being kept together by the tendon-like flesh masking part of its frontal jaws. Clamping down with molar teeth and incisors, the colossus tore the superheated gelatin from Dogora’s body, imprisoning the piece of alien flesh. From between his closed maw, the Titan’s mouth flashed a brilliant orange and pink steam poured out. Upon splitting the maxilla and mandible, the living cells that once were became nothing more than primordial soup. Any scars or corrosion left from the small quantities of acidity were gone in an instant.

Although the laced tentacles dug into the body of the Colossal Titan, it came at a cost. Prolonged exposure to the heat has long since stripped Dogora of the mass it had before this fateful encounter. The bell-shaped form, once nearly dwarfing the gigantic man by nearly twice his total size, was now nearly a pinch larger than the giant. And much to its dismay, if it could feel, the Colossal Titan bordered completion with its body as the last strands of muscle and tendons encased the skeletal foot. With regeneration outpacing Dogora’s acidity, the Colossal Titan recovered from all wounds sustained during their drop. Dogora could now only leave it to chance, and hope it would survive.

Zipping past the mountain tops and into the abyssal canyons, they braced for impact. The first to touchdown was Dogora; its suffering cells splattered against the deep crevice and let loose an uncontained burst of fire and steam.

But that was mere child’s play to what came next.

A split second after impact, the mass of the Colossal Titan slammed into the rugged terrain. With the power of a small nuclear warhead, an enormous flash of brilliant white light and pink geysers jettisoned out of the hole. Any nearby boulders and firmly planted trees were uprooted as a cascade of hot air enraptured the mountain sides. The soft snowcaps melted, and the water that came careening turned into vapor soon after. Any witnesses, although they could not see what has transpired, most certainly heard and felt the sonic vibrations from the ensuing explosion.

And for a moment, humanity did not know if it could exhale a sigh of relief.

*****

Kubal woke up.

His heavy eyes sank from the exhaustion. He had awakened from a long, restless sleep of unconsciousness. He hazily scanned his surroundings, trying to recall where he is. Between the oxygenated liquid that allowed him to breathe and the stringy strands of pink flesh-like webbing attached to his face and body, he knew full well he was still in his Titan body. He briefly noted the condition of his hands, plunged into the fleshy wall in front of him. They had rejuvenated skin. He could feel the tingling sensation of the liquid embracing his entire body. He was naked. And even knowing this, he didn’t care. He could sleep here for the rest of his immortal life and let his body merge with the monster that lied within. But now was not that time.

Lying in the impact crater was the Colossal Titan—or more precisely, what was left. Over half of its face was nothing more than a bleach-white skull with hollow eye sockets. The other half contained the muscle strands and the fleshy tendons, barely hanging on by threads. Planted on its chest and belly, the exposed back was contorted in strange and twisted positions, including the skeletal shoulder blades ripping out of the muscles. The left arm shattered into bloody paste and ashen bone, with the blood having long since evaporated. The right was twisted backward by the elbow, missing a couple of digits. The bulky legs were also fractured and twisted abnormally, with one of the feet outright missing.

He had to get up.

The right hand twitched, almost as if one was coming back from the dead. With a sickening series of crackles, the right arm raised itself up. It then outstretches its entire arm with a disturbing, echoing snap. From there, the Titan’s body rearranged itself and regrew the lost fingers, all covered in pink steam. The shoulder blade automatically popped back into place, allowing the arm to break in more naturally.

Simultaneously, the legs also began to rearrange and repair the damages. The fractured chest also began emitting steam, indicating regeneration. And rather than reconstitute the shattered paste of an arm, the cells detached the old left arm, painstakingly creating an entirely new arm. The flesh and muscle cells on the face began to multiply, coating it with fresh cells. Before long, the skull was no longer visible to the naked eye. Then the pinkish vapors poured out of the eyeholes; it wasn’t long before the shining yellow irises and the black sclera pierced the dark night skies.

Reflecting the tiredness from its host, the Colossal Titan weakly got to its feet. Its body, once a burning orange, dimmed to conserve energy. He looked up at the night sky, clear and crisp with no clouds in sight. He wondered to himself how long it would be before his next encounter with the other Dogora, still at large. But it mattered not. With his naked body, Kubal was ill-equipped to deal with nature. In the meantime, keeping cozy in the Colossal Titan would have to suffice.

The Titan unconsciously let slip a gentle moan, admiring the crystal clear darkness. In the period he came from, in the distant future, the world he knew was masked by clouds of pollution and deceptive political corruption. In order to maintain balance, all knowledge of Earth’s history and the government’s failures had to be kept erased from the public conscious. For Kubal, it was paradise to thrive off the spoils of wealth and power. It was why, in his time, he devised the Titan War which brought down the Outer Wall; so that the people would be ruled by the fear in their hearts and souls.

He knew full well of the deep rooted corruption of this day and age. It was no different than his time, really. Proof goes to show that the human animal will never seek the truth to its mistakes. Humanity, by proxy, is about conflict. And because of this, nature seeks to restore order by the power of natural disasters, behemoths, and leviathans.

But then, where does Dogora fit into this? A celestial being of the void traveling through the reaches of space to feed. Is it natural, or unnatural? Is it part of a greater, complex, cosmic web of nature’s order? Or is it a forbearer of something much worse yet to come?

It is not for him to know. In the meantime, the Colossal Titan began to take long, sluggish strides to the Canadian coast, awaiting his human acquaintances. When the time is ripe, and the Dogora threat is extinguished, he will use his awesome power to destroy these byproducts of nature, and allow humanity to thrive in the perfect darkness and become like God.

So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.
-Genesis 1:27