How To Train Your Kaiju

by Nicholas Knight

  It’s not something that the military’s cooked up. It’s another kaiju. Moving too quickly for me to get more than glimpse of crystals, a lean, dinosaur-esque build, and claws so long that my imagination must be exaggerating their length, the attacking kaiju nimbly avoids Xenatlas’s counter attack, spinning about to lash at him with those stupidly long claws.

  Blood geysers from his kaiju. Xenatlas staggers.

  That’s all the opening our new enemy needs. The crystal kaiju darts around Xenatlas, striking the head from Solrin as he tries to get to his feet, then zips away.

  Fucking PKer! Xenatlas screams. I’ve never heard Xenatlas this angry before. It’ s no wonder. There’s no doubt that some PVP action in Kaiju Wars is premeditated and agreed upon beforehand. Personally, I’d love to have a few one on one showdowns with Taisaur against some other kaiju. But that’s not what’s happening now and even though we’ve technically completed the mission, I wonder if Xenatlas will still get the reward he was promised if his kaiju gets killed here.

  There’s an echoing roar in response to Xenatlas’s cry. It’s more like a bird caw, than a roar, and it’s accompanied by feminine laughter. Our enemy’s a girl.

  That concentrated, rippling beam strikes Taisaur as I reach Xenatlas. I almost miss what it does because the result is so miniscule. Taisaur doesn’t take any damage. Instead, his HP bar shrinks. Our opponent’s special attack somehow lets her lower our Kaiju’s over all HP so that her attacks deal more damage when they land. That’s fucking wicked.

  The damn thing’s back as soon as I’ve had the thought and I throw Taisaur to the side. The crystalline kaiju zooms past me. Only I’m not her target.

  Xenatlas’s kaiju bellows, then topples over. A moment later the body vanishes, and I’m left alone with Taisaur in a ruined city facing down a kaiju that clearly delights in taking down other kaiju.

  A single expletive escapes me that I feel effectively sums up my situation. “Fuck.”

  MEGAPTERA

  Chapter Eighteen

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  My imagination hadn’t lied to me. Looking at the kaiju in front of me I wish it had. Those crystal claws are longer than some kaiju’s arms.

  The city’s a pile of ruins, only bits and pieces remaining. Nothing that this kaiju can use for cover. She doesn’t seem to be trying to find it thought. I’m on my own, easily the lowest level of her opponents. She stalks forward slowly and I swear I hear laughing. She’s enjoying this, thinking she’s intimidating me as she flexes those stupidly long claws.

  She’s not wrong but that pisses me off. The little meter below my HP flashes and grows. Useless to me. Taisaur doesn’t have any ranged attacks or energy abilities that would draw upon the rage meter. Even if he did, his Special Attack is so abysmal it wouldn’t make a difference.

  The kaiju before me is lean, almost serpentine. It’s over all shape has a lot more in common with actual dinosaurs than Taisaur, leaning forward like the T-rex. The body, beneath all that spiky white crystalline armor is dull orange. Most of its bulk in fact seems to belong to those sharp crystals.

  For a moment I’m filled with hope. Taisaur’s actually taller than this thing, but then I realize that my opponent isn’t built for power. She’s built for speed. She’s long and compact and those legs of hers are powerful. A second of examination brings her public stats into focus. Her name’s Halira and her HP bar is full. Her rage meter isn’t, though it’s quickly filling back up. And she’s three levels higher than me.

  Fuck.

  She dropped Xenatlas, Solrin, and Megaptera, and Xenatlas was several levels higher than her. Then again, she’d ambushed him. We’d been weakened by our fight with the local military and all of them had been struck by her HP bar shrinking ray. Seriously, that kind of attack was just sick. How the hell did an attack like that help you destroy buildings or cities? As far as I could tell, none of the military’s defenses had been assigned anything even like an HP bar.

  Whoever this player was, she’d designed her kaiju specifically for taking out other kaiju. What a bitch.

  The beak-like mouth of my opponent opens, revealing fangs inside as it lets out a shriek, flexing its body so its crystals rattle and its claws shift, catching the light and glittering. It’s almost pretty. In the same way that an attacking great white shark is pretty.

  The roar ends and from the beak fires that transparent beam of rippling energy, dropping my opponent’s rage meter. It catches me squarely in the chest and Taisaur’s maximum HP shrinks, reducing the amount of HP I have left proportionately. The effects are barely noticeable to me, bordering on negligible.

  Halira must not be able to tell how ineffective her beam was though, because she lets out a triumphant shriek and charges. Minimal effect or no, my HP’s still dangerously low after everything we’ve been through. I need to come up with a strategy that can counter this thing.

  Failing to do that in the split-second I’ve got before she’ll be on me, I charge right back. I swear I can see a flicker of surprise on Halira’s face before I throw myself to the side. She rushes past, claws narrowly missing Taisaur’s body in a shimmering arc that would have laid open my kaiju’s belly had they hit.

  She’s moving too fast for a quick turn around like she’d managed with Xenatlas earlier and goes charging past. Halira shrieks. Puss-sucking son of a bitch!

  That voice is disconcertingly familiar. Damn. No time to think about that. Her rage meter’s climbing fast, almost as fast as the torrent of obscenity she’s pouring out. It’s almost enough to make me wish I had a free hand to write this down.

  I’m going to choke you out with your own shitty intestines!

  She ignores her now full rage meter in favor of coming right at me. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she’s moving even faster. I can’t get out of the way in time. It’s all I can do to throw Taisaur into the attack at the last minute. His horns miss. Those scythe-like claws cut furrows through his side. My HP drops rapidly but doesn’t empty. The taste of salt fills my mouth.

  And Taisaur’s spiked tail lashes out. The long spines slip between the crystal spikes to drive home deep into that slight, dull orange body underneath. Taisaur’s tail is so powerful, and Halira so surprisingly light, that my opponent is lifted from the ground and sent flying through the air.

  She lands hard a couple of blocks away, the impact shaking the ground hard enough that several smaller buildings that had managed to stay upright shudder and crumble. Taisaur’s HP is flashing in the red. We’re about to die.

  At the renewed torrent of swearing from my opponent I reorient myself to take her in. Halira’s thrashing about on the ground, struggling to right herself and demolishing everything around her into a fine powder. It’s not her antics that have my attention though, it’s her HP. She’s in the red too.

  That hit from Taisaur just about killed her.

  Holy shit.

  It takes me a second to realize what that actually means. Taisaur’s got a decent spread of offense and defense. He’s above average in pretty much all respects. Really, it’s not that great a build. There’s only two areas he’s really good in. HP and Special Defense. He’s growing into a more than decent tank, built to take a licking and keep on ticking.

  But my opponent is built entirely around killing quickly. She’s not a fighter, she’s a sniper. A guerilla striker. She’s an optimized build, her Speed and Attack stats totally maxed out and supported by a decent Special Attack. Those crystals might be good armor, but they leave plenty or openings and are brittle, judging by how many had been cracked and shattered by Halira’s landing. I understand then, a sort of meta-detail, recalling the taste that had filled my mouth a few seconds ago. Her kaiju’s not just based on any kind of crystal. She’s salt. That’s got to be the basis for her ray attack. It’s some kind of desiccation beam, which translates statistically into attacking other kaiju’s HP stat rather
than dealing damage.

  Her HP and Special Defense stats are probably dump stats, left at the absolute minimum. And against anyone else that wouldn’t matter. Hell, her absent Special Defense doesn’t actually matter a whit against Taisaur. I’ve got nothing to take advantage of it. And she’s so fast that I doubt I could hit her with a ranged attack anyway.

  But Taisaur can almost completely ignore her Special Attack. He soaked it right up like it was nothing, and with his bulk so high he was able to tank her attack. All of this goes through my head in the few seconds it takes Halira to get herself upright and for me to charge forward to press my advantage.

  In one accidental stroke I’ve leveled the playing field. I can’t let the opportunity pass.

  You cock-guzzling Canadian cum drop! She screams. I’m going to tear open your throat and shove your tiny dick down the bleeding hole!

  That brings me up short. I’m still charging, still going forward with everything I’ve got, but I’m shocked. Not because of the swearing. Because I suddenly know exactly who it is I’m fighting. The recognition sends a jolt of adrenaline through me. My rage meter flashes. I’m really going to enjoy smashing her to pieces.

  I’m almost on her when Halira leaps forward to meet my attack, claws extended. Out kaiju clash together, massive bodies impacting hard enough to shake the rubble-strewn ground. Streets crack. Ruined buildings shift.

  There’s a flash of glittering claws, impacting a split-second before Taisaur’s horns or spikes and drive home. My HP flashes, drops, and the bar’s empty.

  I jolt upright in my lawn chair so suddenly that I topple over, crashing onto the roof sideways. Swearing, I push myself upright. My mouth is dry, still filled with the taste of salt. I’d prefer the taste of victory.

  It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I might know someone from the game in real life, even with only a little over a hundred players participating in the beta. Nor should the fact that I lost. Half the fun of a kaiju movie isn’t actually watching them just smash everything, it’s watching them fight against one another. Invincible as I’d felt before it was only an illusion. Especially when ambushed.

  Dammit, if I’d just pushed my attack earlier instead of dodging I would have won. Taisaur had enough HP then that a real hit, backed by his full power, would have crushed that salty bitch. I take a deep breath. Then another.

  I can accept the fact that I lost that fight. I was weakened, my whole group ambushed, and my opponent several levels higher. I don’t know that I could accept my loss gracefully, but I could accept it.

  But why the hell did I have to lose to Lusitania?

  Chapter Nineteen

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  I climbed down from the roof a little while later. I’d needed a few moments to lick my wounds. Losing a fight, even a virtual fight, was bad enough. Losing to Lusitania? That was just salt in the wound. No pun intended.

  Usually I’m pretty chilled out after playing the game. Something about being Taisaur, experiencing that power, that sense of invincibility and consequence-free release of my anger takes the weight of all my problems from my shoulders. It’s refreshing. Like having soaked in a hot tub or what I imagine getting a massage is like. Therapeutic. Which I guess is the point. There’s a tension that’s released. A poison purged.

  I didn’t get that this time. Sore loser? Me?

  I could just hear her gloating over Taisaur’s corpse. Wherever she was playing she was probably dancing a little jig in place while laughing. I hate that thought. Somehow every imagined taunt she made wasn’t just directed at me, but my kaiju. Nobody got to insult Taisaur.

  I was under control enough that I was only mildly fuming when I make it back to my dorm room and step inside. Only to find a scene of utter chaos.

  My room looks like the city my friends and I had just demolished. The drawers holding all my clothes have been pulled out, the contents strewn haphazardly around the room. My desk’s drawers had also been pulled out and emptied on the ground. My mattress is on its side leaning against the wall, the sheets taken off. They are crumpled up in a corner but look like they’d been gone through.

  Every single thing I possess has been tossed about the room except for what I’d brought with me up to the roof. Even my laptop, which I’d had to buy for school, is open, the password lock having been bypassed. My browser history is pulled up on the screen.

  Brett stands amidst the chaos, a pair of my jeans held in his hand, looking like a deer in caught in headlights. “Oh, hey. I, uh, you’re back early.”

  “What the fuck?”

  He holds up his hands in a placating gesture. It probably would have worked better if he wasn’t still holding my pants. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

  I slam the door behind me and surge forward. Brett’s quick but so am I and I’ve got both reach and strength on my side. Not to mention fury. I grab him by the shoulders as he tries to duck away and shove him into the wall hard enough that the Sheetrock shakes from the impact.

  I pull back my fist, ready to plant it right in his face, but he’s already crying. Actually crying. Like with tears in his eyes.

  It pulls me up short. I’m still angry. Furious actually. Beating up someone this much smaller than me who’s clearly this scared though? Distantly it occurs to me that this kind of recognition normally wouldn’t occur to me. Sore loser or not, the game’s still doing its job.

  “Don’t hit me,” Brett says, and for a moment I think he’s pleading. It’s pathetic. It makes me want to hit him all over again. Except that he’s not pleading, least ways not for himself. “This isn’t some frat party! You hit me here, you might go back to jail.”

  Even if I scared him into not saying anything, which I really don’t want to do, he’s probably right. He’s also been digging through my history enough to have learned about my prison record. The prick. There’s no way he won’t scream if I hit him. Our floor mates would hear. And with my record?

  Fuck. He’s right. I hate that!

  I don’t let him go. “I think when they learn I caught you tossing my shit to rob me they’ll be inclined to be lenient.”

  Brett actually whimpers. “I’m not robbing you!”

  “You’re not?” I make sure he hears my disbelief.

  “No!”

  I look pointedly around the room. “Then what the fuck’s this, huh? Sure looks like you’re robbing me? You just feel like tearing up my stuff?”

  “No!”

  “Then what are you doing?” I roar, getting right up in his face. I swear, I can almost imagine my own rage meter climbing.

  “Looking for your stash!”

  I blink, trying to make sense of that. “What stash? My money?”

  “No! I said I wasn’t trying to rob you,” he says, and he actually has the fall to sound indignant. He glances around, as if afraid someone might have their ear pressed to the door or wall. When he speaks again, it’s almost a whisper. “I was trying to find your drugs.”

  I roll my eyes. This again? “What part of I’m not taking drugs do you not get? There’s no drugs here!”

  “Oh please!” And now his voice is raised, and there’s no mistaking that he really is indignant. “You go hide on the roof for hours at a time. You come back all chilled out and calm. The longer you go between your sneak-off sessions the more irritable you get. You’re super secretive and you’ve got a hair-trigger temper. Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re not dealing with some kind of addiction.”

  I glare right into his eyes, lowering my face so that it’s only inches from his. Our noses almost touch. “I am not dealing with some kind of addiction.”

  I pull back and release him. Brett stumbles forward. I let him, and he almost falls over.

  I’m mad as hell with him. I’m tempted to kick him before he can get his balance just for the joy of watching him fall to the floor. That won’t solve my problem though. H
e thinks I’m on drugs. He didn’t believe me before when I said I wasn’t, he won’t believe me now. Not unless I offer up some kind of excuse or justification for my behavior.

  That thought alone, that I have to explain myself to anyone, almost makes me not do it out of spite. Fortunately, I recognize that urge for what it is now. I take a deep breath. My temper, my anger, is a part of me, I say to myself. That doesn’t mean that it is me.

  “It’s online therapy,” I say.

  Brett looks up at me, blinking wildly. “Huh?”

  “What I’m doing. It’s an experimental form of therapy. It’s part of the deal I made for my early release.”

  Brett straightens up. “But you come back all, almost like you’ve been high. And you get so angry if you don’t get to do whatever it is you do.”

  I cross my arms. “It may have slipped your notice, but I’ve got anger management issues.”

  Understanding dawns in Brett’s eyes. “It’s anger management therapy?”

  “Yes,” I say curtly. It’s more explanation than he needs.

  “So that thing about your Mom you said before—”

  I cut him off, pointing a finger right in his face. “You do not get to talk about my Mom or call me a liar after this shit you just pulled.” I lower my hand. “But no, that was real. Mom’s…bad.”

  “Guess you’ve got some reasons to be angry,” he says softly.

  “You think?” I spin around and make for the door.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  I open the door and turn around to face him. “To a bar. I need a fucking drink.” I circle my finger around the room. “And you can clean all this shit up while I’m out.”

  He swallows. “That’s fair.”

  Damn right it’s fair. I didn’t even beat his ass. “And if I ever catch you messing with my computer, every bully you ever had in high school is going to seem like your very best friend.”