Atomic Rex: Challenge of Gurral

by Matthew Dennion

  The Smasher shook his head and shouted, “You think I’m gonna let you do that again?” Gurral then lifted his clenched fists into the air and brought them crashing down onto the forest floor. The impact of Gurral’s blow sent a shockwave moving through the jungle that uprooted trees for dozens of meters around the Smasher. Gurral saw more movement in the trees to his right. He turned, lifted his meaty mitts over his head one more time, and slammed them into the ground, sending earth, stone, and shattered trees radiating out from his strike and destroying another dozen meter’s worth of jungle.

  Gurral was rising from the crouch of that last attack to an upright position when he once more saw movement in the trees further to his right. The gladiator roared and went on a rampage! The burly behemoth spun to his right and then slammed his hands into the ground again, sending out a shockwave that destroyed countless trees. He then took two more steps to a fresh patch of greenery and delivered another ground-breaking downward strike. Again and again his fists rose to come crashing down upon the earth in an ever-spreading ecosystem obliterating onslaught. Gurral continued his assault until he completely decimated all of the plant life around him for several hundred meters in a full three-hundred-sixty degrees.

  A nearly exhausted Gurral was panting as the humidity of the jungle continued to sap the strength from his injured body and heat haze shimmered off his skull. In front of him, at the edge of the field of destruction he had wrought, more plant life intertwined and formed a pillar with more claws and tentacles sprouting out from it. Gurral lifted his green-stained mitts, clenching them into fists, and steeled himself in preparation for renewed aggression, but after several seconds of waiting with nothing happening, Gurral squinted at his leafy foe, dropped his hands to his sides, and stared at Marsh-Thing as the green monster continued to undulate at the line of decimated trees.

  Gurral scratched his scalp and talked out his thoughts. “You don’t look afraid, but you’re not stepping up to fight me because… you can’t!” Gurral put his hands on his hips as he spoke, taking a much needed breather. “I smashed you lots of times and you just took over more plants and came at me again. Now there aren’t any plants right here, and you’re stuck!” Gurral looked outside his circle of destruction to see nothing but endless trees in every direction. He grinned as he looked back at the pillar of interwoven foliage that was Marsh-Thing. “You think you're just gonna wait me out, right? I mean, I can keep smashing your leafy butt, but you’ll just squish back together with whatever plants are around.” He gestured to the ocean of trees in all directions. “This whole damn place is yours to take over, isn’t it? If I kept fighting, eventually there’d be nothing left of me.” Gurral shook his head. “There’s no way I’m getting out of this armpit of a forest until you’re gone. I’m sure of it.”

  Gurral sighed. “But how do I get rid of you if I can’t smash you?” The Smasher dropped his head and looked down at the device the new Arena Lord had given to him to transport both himself and Atomic Rex back to Arena World with. Gurral shrugged. “If smashing doesn’t work, then maybe fancy new tech things will.” He looked at the preprogrammed coordinates shown on the piece of tech. “These numbers take me back to the Arena… If I remember them then maybe...” The Smasher took one last long look at the array of five numbers, then entered a new random set of numbers into the device. Gurral pointed the device at the area just behind the pillar of animated trees and pushed the button to activate it as he shrugged. “I hope this works.”

  A shimmering light-blue portal opened up behind Marsh-Thing and as it did, Gurral grinned and walked forward several steps through the devastated clearing he had created, stopping a few hundred meters short of Marsh-Thing. He chuckled as he bent down and dug his hands deep into the ground. “I don’t know where you’re going, but you’re about to be someone else’s problem.” Gurral then heaved upwards with all his might, sending an avalanche of soil, rocks, and dead roots hurtling toward Marsh-Thing, knocking the floronic nightmare into the portal.

  Gurral watched through the portal as the pillar of plants that was Marsh-Thing came crashing down into what looked like some kind of field with giant long-toothed cats and oversized Elk. The Smasher quickly pressed the button to close the portal, hopefully trapping Marsh-Thing on some other world forever. He then carefully punched back in the numbers he’d remembered, and was pretty sure he put them back in the same as before.

  When the portal had fully closed, Gurral took a deep breath, then made a tentative step into the jungle. He waited for a moment to see if any of the shrubbery would form up and assault him, indicating that Marsh-Thing had left some small part of itself behind. After several seconds of nothing happening, Gurral breathed a sigh of relief and then closed his eyes for a moment to let his bloodlust ease off. He looked down at the badly burned skin all over his body and said, “Well, Leafy, you sure did a number on me. I need a break to heal up.” He was in dire need of several things to hurry that healing along. The first two things were food and water. The Smasher could smell water ahead of him so he figured there was a river or a lake nearby that he could use to get a drink. He was also looking forward to splashing some cool water on his head to lower his temperature. The fight hadn’t helped with his overheating one bit, and now he was even more thirsty than before. He knew that he was getting dehydrated and if he didn't down some water very soon, he would pass out.

  Gurral grimaced at that thought and then chuckled. “I beat a whole friggin’ acid jungle, but might lose a fight with the weather.” He started walking toward the water source. As he was walking, he continued to talk aloud. “Where there’s water, there’ll be some kinda food. A quick drink, a little chow topped with dust, a quick nap, and I’ll be good as new.”

  The live-feed went to intermission, and the hover-cams deployed solar collectors to recharge. Back at the Arena, the Newcomer sat among the Arena Lords in their central viewing room. Some of the so-called masters of the galaxy were congratulating themselves on a profitable battle and many more to come. Some were having side-conversations about who to pit against their debuting competitor to test its mettle. All were more animated than they’d been in a long while. Sitting quietly, a small, subtle smile crept across the Newcomer’s face.

  Gurral walked for a few miles before he came across the river he’d smelled before, and as he’d hoped, it had giant mutated fish living in it. The Smasher took a long drink of water, and then hung his hand down into the river. It was still raw and sore from the acid burns, and the scent drew in one of the huge, toothy fish which made the poor decision of trying for a quick bite. The gigantic gladiator hauled the giant fish out of the river as it flailed about trying to escape, then ate it raw with a pinch of dust. An hour later, the normally quiet jungle was blanketed by the sound of the arena champion’s snores as his skin slowly recovered from the horrible burns he had received from his battle.

  On a parallel Earth that was far younger than the Earth it had come from, the microbes that were Marsh-Thing spread out over a field that prehistoric elk were grazing on. {Author’s note, to find out what happened to Marsh-Thing, check out my novel of the same name.}

  Chapter 8

  Pacific Ocean near the Hawaiian Islands

  The typhoon raged across the middle of the Pacific Ocean as the kaiju known as Hagan made his way across it. Waves cresting nearly twenty meters high crashed down on the monster as he continued to press forward in search of new hunting grounds. Hagan was roughly a hundred kilometers off the coast of Hawaii when he started to feel hungry once again. The act of crossing the ocean and fighting through the storm had used up most of the energy he had gained from devouring Marbo.

  As he neared the Hawaiin Islands, the chimeric beast could sense the presence of another monster occupying its waters. Like all kaiju, he knew that that creature would likely attack him for entering its territory. He also knew that if he could defeat the creature, it would quench his voracious appetite until he reached North America where he hoped to find abund
ant food.

  Hagan felt something move swiftly beneath him as he was close to making landfall on the island of Honolulu. Hagan was a few hundred meters away from land when he felt something slam into his armored side. While Hagan was able to swim vast distances, his heavily armored body did not lend itself well to the ocean. The creature was unable to breathe underwater and his weight made it a constant struggle to stay near the surface while swimming. Unlike most kaiju which were equally adept in the water and on land, Hagan’s robust body put him at a significant disadvantage in the water.

  Hagan was roughly fifty meters from land when he felt the creature below him ram its body into his legs. The blow caused Hagan to spin around so that he was no longer facing land but rather the vast and rough ocean he had just crossed. The overly aggressive Hagan opened his mouth to roar and challenge the beast that was attacking him, but the act proved to be a fatal mistake as the raging storm sent a wave crashing into his mouth and filled his lungs with water. Hagan was trying to vomit up the deluge of sea water that had entered his body when a set of powerful jaws closed on his right leg. The bite force of the creature was so extreme that it cut through the armor on Hagan’s leg as if it were cardboard. Hagan’s mouth was open as he was trying to vomit out the seawater he had swallowed when the creature attacking him pulled him beneath the waves.

  The tri-horned kaiju was pulled through a cloud of his blood as he was dragged toward the ocean floor. As Hagan sank through the dark and blood-filled waters, he was farther disoriented as the creature whose jaws were clamped onto his leg began to roll, causing Hagan to tumble in a downward spiral. Within a few seconds of being attacked, Hagan was injured, bleeding, had a lung full of water, was submerged, and now had no idea which way the surface was even if he was able to free himself from the beast that was trying to slay him.

  With his life quickly slipping away from him, Hagan acted on pure instinct. The horned monster thrust his clawed hand in the direction of the jaws that he felt biting into his leg. Hagan’s first blow bounced off a hard surface. The only effect the blow had was to cause the attacking predator to shake its head and sink its teeth deeper into Hagan’s leg.

  Hagan’s lungs felt as if they were about to burst when he felt his body slam into the ocean floor. Knowing that he needed to free himself or die, Hagan’s instincts once again prompted him to slash at the mouth attacking him. This time when Hagan’s claw struck his attacker it plunged into something soft that popped when he hit it. This time the blow caused the attacking creature to release his hold on the Japanese monster.

  As soon as Hagan felt his leg free of the attacker's grip, he started to swim in the opposite direction of the sea floor. When the furry monster cleared the cloud of his own blood, he saw blue flashes of lightning dancing across the surface of the ocean above him. With each stroke, Hagan’s exhausted and oxygen starved body felt as if it were going to expire. The monster knew that death was closing in on him but Hagan had not defeated all of the kaiju in Japan to die on the ocean floor. The defiant beast fought through the pain, and with stroke after agonizing stroke, pushed his way toward the surface and air.

  When Hagan’s head breached the surface, the first thing he did was to vomit up the remaining water in his lungs. He then took several deep breaths of life sustaining air, as lightning erupted through the clouds and illuminated the sky. The bright blue and white flash showed Hagan a quick glance of what looked like crocodilian eyes peering out of the surface of the water several hundred meters away from him. One of the eyes was round and yellow and glared at Hagan with a seething hunger and hatred. The other eye was little more than a socket with blood and a yellow fluid leaking out of it. Hagan stared at the punctured eye and realized that eye was the part of the creature’s body that his claw had popped when he was trying to free himself.

  The crocodilian horror slipped beneath the waters. Like Hagan, the monster was one of the last True Kaiju left in the world. The creature had once been a Sarcosuchus on the island where Atomic Rex had hailed from when he was just a dinosaur. The ancient reptile had hunted in the large river that ran across the island. Over the course of his first life, the reptile had dragged countless dinosaurs and other animals to their doom. When the nuclear bomb was dropped on the island, the radioactive fallout changed the Sarcosuchus into the kaiju that would be dubbed Kolong, as a homage to the Lolong, the largest living crocodile in the world at the time.

  Like all the kaiju, Kolong grew to more than twice his previous size, topping out at nearly seventy meters long. Additionally, he also gained the ability to spew a mist of pure chlorine from his jaws. When the kaiju started leaving the island, Kolong made his way to the Hawaiian Islands and had been the dominant kaiju there and in the waters around them ever since. The half blind monster bellowed at his prey and then slipped back beneath the dark waves.

  Hagan saw Kolong moving through the water toward him like a living torpedo. The mammalian creature knew that if his attacker dragged him underwater again, he would not survive. Hagan turned and began swimming as quickly as he could toward the shore. The Japanese demon knew that he was not going to be able to reach land before Kolong caught up to him. He did however realize that if he could reach the point where he could stand with his head above water, he would have a chance at defeating the colossal crocodile.

  Hagan forced his exhausted body past its limits as he made his way toward land. Even swimming at his maximum velocity, Hagan could sense Kolong closing in behind him. Hagan’s feet had just touched ground when he felt a rush of water behind him. As the swell hit his back, Hagan dove into the water and forced his body as low to the ocean floor as he could. As Hagan was diving down, Kolong swam into Hagan’s deadly double row of fins.

  Kolong did his best to shift his body around the blades that were now in front of him, however since he was moving at top speed, the underside of his body was sliced open by his prey’s defenses. Hagan’s bladed back cut two long slits into Kolong’s relatively soft underbelly as the monster swam over him. Crimson gushed out of Kolong’s body as he turned and tried to make his way back out into the ocean and away from the deadly Hagan.

  Kolong had managed to turn his body away from his former prey when Hagan reached out and grabbed his tail. Kolong thrashed violently in an attempt to escape the Japanese kaiju’s grip but the action caused the slits in his body to tear farther and limited how hard he could fight to free himself. Kolong was forced to give up his attempt at flight and instead turn his attention to fighting Hagan to the death.

  Hagan was pulling Kolong closer to him when the reptilian beast turned his head and spewed a mouthful of chlorine gas into Hagan’s face. The poisonous gas burned Hagan’s nose, mouth, and eyes but its effects were severely diluted by the hurricane force winds and rain. Hagan pushed past the quickly fading pain in his mucus membranes and threw his body on top of Kolong.

  The crushing weight of Hagan’s body that had thus far been a hindrance in his trans-Pacific journey was now his most dangerous weapon. The incredible weight of Hagan’s body pushed Kolong to the ocean floor. Despite his incredible strength, Kolong was unable to free himself from under Hagan’s girth. With his opponent pinned beneath him, and the ocean quickly washing away the effects of Kolong’s chlorine attack, Hagan moved in for the kill. First, he drove his claw into Kolong’s one remaining eye, completely blinding the creature. He then began repeatedly driving his fists into the top of Kolong’s head until the reptile was no longer struggling to free himself.

  With his opponent stunned, Hagan rolled the aquatic monster onto his back. Blood seeped out from the long slits on the dying kaiju’s belly and it drifted up through the water to Hagan’s nostrils. The smell of blood caused the hungry beast to salivate. Hagan pulled his head back then he drove his nasal horn through Kolong’s chest and into his heart. The crocodilian monster’s body spasmed for a brief second and then it went stiff as the creature died.

  Hagan pulled his head free from Kolong's corpse then he lifted his head out
of the water. The juggernaut roared out his victory as lightning crashed down into the water around him, lighting his body up in an eerie silhouette. Hagan then reached down, grabbed Kolong's body, and dragged it to shore. The victorious Hagan then sat on the beach as the storm raged around him and devoured his grisly meal.

  By the time Hagan had finished eating, the typhoon had passed. The exhausted monster laid down in the sand next to what was left of Kolong. Hagan took one look at the storm as it made its way toward North America. The kaiju decided that after resting he would follow the storm to the continent and claim his new territory.

  Chapter 9

  Pacific Ocean off the Northern Coast of Peru

  Atomic Rex glided through the cool waters of the Pacific Ocean. The dreaded kaiju moved through the ocean with two thoughts on his mind. The lesser of the two thoughts was hunting. The nuclear theropod was still well fed by the meal he had made of the giant eagle and her hatchlings but being an apex predator, he was always on the lookout for food.

  The second and more pressing thought was to find any threats to his territory. Atomic Rex and all other kaiju had an instinct that alerted them if another kaiju had entered their territory. This unique skill seemed to be unlimited by physical distance. Atomic Rex considered his territory to be the entirety of the western hemisphere. Currently, the saurian creature could sense several possible threats to his rule as the alpha kaiju within his territory. Two of the threats were north of his current location. One threat was on land and the other was approaching from across the sea.

  The third and currently more pressing threat was in his general area. One of Atomic Rex’s main food sources from the ocean were the whale populations that migrated up and down the coast. Due to the radiation released from Atomic Rex and other monsters, some of the whales would grow to nearly ridiculous sizes. When he reached the shoreline, Atomic Rex found several of these animals washed up dead on the beach with chunks of meat taken out them. From the smell of the rotting whales, the reptilian beast was certain that they had been attacked by another giant monster or as their odor indicated perhaps even multiple monsters. The moment that Atomic Rex slipped into the ocean he could sense that these creatures were in the part of the ocean that belonged to him.