Kaiju Corps

by Matthew Dennion

  Robogator positioned his body on top of Leviathan’s chest. The robot’s jaws were still wide open with one of the kaiju’s hands on both its upper and lower jaws. The kaiju was staring directly into the mouth of the robotic nightmare as it slowly pushed its way closer to his head. Leviathan could feel his unique physiology quickly healing the wound in his leg. He needed his arms to keep Robogator’s teeth off his face long enough for his leg to heal so that he could counter this attack. Leviathan’s arm shook, and he could feel a burning sensation building inside of them as he strained to keep the robot from killing him. The kaiju could feel his leg sewing itself back together, and just before his arms were about to falter from fatigue, he wrapped his legs around Robogator’s body and then he rolled to his right.

  Robogator was now laying belly up with the enormous weight of Leviathan pinning it to the ground. Leviathan placed his left forearm on Robogator’s lower jaw and then pushed the mech’s mouth shut and forced its head to the ground. With the robot’s dangerous jaws nullified, the kaiju used his right arm to attack the mech. Leviathan grabbed Robogator’s left front leg with his hand, and then with a roar, the kaiju tore the limb off the robot’s body. The robot struggled to free itself as Leviathan unsheathed his claws and began tearing at the opening where the removed limb had been. Leviathan tore chunks of metal away from the opening he had created until he had made a hole in the robot’s side large enough for him to stick his hand into it.

  Leviathan reached into the robot’s interior and he pulled out handful after handful of tires, computer parts, wires, and pistons until Robogator finally stopped struggling. The kaiju roared in triumph. He then turned to see Chagon wrapping her long body around the arm of the hand that Transit was using to strangle her.

  Chagon wrapped her slender body in a tight coil around Transit’s arm. The kaiju then constricted her body and crushed Transit’s arm as if it were an empty soda can. Both Chagon and Transit’s crushed arm fell to the ground at the feet of the giant robot. Transit picked up his right foot to step on Chagon, but the kaiju easily slithered away from the blow by moving toward the robot’s left leg. Chagon wrapped her body around Transit’s left leg and crushed it as easily as she had the robot’s arm. With the remains of the leg still within her embrace, Chagon pulled on the damaged limb and yanked it off its body.

  The crippled Transit was trying in vain to stand up as Chagon slithered up to the hole in the robot’s body from where she had removed its leg. The robot was helpless to defend itself as Chagon crawled inside of it. Once she had pushed her head into Transit, Chagon found herself surrounded by the layer of tires that the robots used to protect themselves from EMPs. The dragon-like kaiju pushed her way through the tires until she found the computer system within Transit’s chest. The kaiju opened her mouth and then closed her long jaws on the computers, instantly shutting down the robot. Chagon could feel a blistering cold just beneath her body. She shifted her gaze down to see hundreds of humans frozen solid and stored in a compartment that was attached to the robot’s back. She slid her forked tongue over the top of the container, and to her horror, she found that the people within the frozen pod were still alive. She doubted that even without EMPs wiping out the bulk of Earth’s technology that the Horsemen had the ability to successful unfreeze the captured humans without killing them. As the implications of what it meant that these people were still alive sank into Chagon’s mind, she roared in anguish and began crawling back out of the robot’s body.

  As Chagon was pulling herself out of the robot, she imagined what it would be like to be one of the frozen people. They would be sent on what could be a century’s long voyage through space. The Horsemen were certain that anything being shipped back to the planet the Signal had originated from was being utilized as a food source. Even in her kaiju form, she shuddered at the thought of the aliens who sent out the Signal eating their food alive. The idea of a human running terrified from a giant robot one moment and then finding themselves in a situation where an alien was going to devour them the next, was beyond comprehension. Chagon made a silent vow to herself that she would do anything that she could to prevent the robots from sending the people they had captured into space.

  Chagon crawled out of Transit’s body to see Leviathan walking over to her. Behind Leviathan, she saw the TR-3B landing near the factory where the robots had first been constructed. Leviathan looked at Chagon then he shifted his gaze toward the outskirts of the city. Leviathan could see Garudasaurus battling Mustang, so he gestured toward Focus who was still capturing people and storing them within its body.

  Chagon roared in agreement with Leviathan’s suggestion to attack Focus and save more people from being frozen. The two kaiju then started heading toward Focus. They had worked on an attack plan for the two of them to engage a single adversary several times during their training sessions, and Chagon thought that this would be an excellent opportunity to utilize that plan. Chagon slithered in front of Leviathan and then laid down, indicating the plan that she wanted to put into action. Leviathan looked down at the serpentine kaiju and then he roared his approval of her plan. Chagon hissed in reply then she lifted her body off the ground and slithered ahead of her teammate.

  Brian Linke saw what he could only describe as a UFO landing at the spot where he had gone to work this morning to deal with what was reported to be a virus in the system. With the city of Detroit around him in ruins, giant monsters fighting massive robots, and countless people dead it was quickly becoming obvious that this was much more than a simple virus being placed in a car manufacturer’s system. A ramp opened up on the side of the UFO, and Brian ran up into it as the messages he had received from the Horsemen had instructed him to do. When he entered the aircraft, he saw only a single pilot. Brian yelled to man, “Are you part of the military? Did you drop the EMP on the city?”

  The pilot shook his head. “The military’s computers and weaponry fell to the alien Signal roughly thirty minutes ago. My name is Captain Todd Granderson, and yes, I did drop the EMP bomb. I am with Horsemen and now, so are you. We are trying to save enough human lives to form a resistance to fight against these robots and the aliens who created them.” Captain Granderson turned around. “Civilization, as we know it, has come to an end, but the human race can still carry on if we can save enough people.”

  Brian was overwhelmed by what the pilot had told him, and yet he only needed to look at the decimated city he called home for confirmation of the pilot’s claims. Brian pushed his fears and doubts aside for the moment. “All right, what can I do?”

  Captain Granderson looked to the front of the ship. “For now, sit down. We need to get back into this fight and help out the Kaiju Corps. The Horsemen have the most sophisticated computers in the world. They figure that their firewalls can hold up against the Signal for a little while longer. They are busy trying to churn out as many EMPs as possible right now, but they have a task for you. Once this battle is over, you need to figure out how to get this TR-3B and the twenty-four other ships like it shielded from the Signal. The Horsemen say that you are pretty good with computers and I hope that you are, because a big part of the future of our species now depends on your computer skills.”

  Brian took a deep breath as the information he was given sank into his mind. He was still trying to process it when he saw the majestic form of Garudasaurus flying toward a robot that was made from mustang parts. Brian looked at the ship he was in, and he quickly realized that it was composed of hardware and software that he had never seen before. He was close to losing it with everything that was going on, but he knew that if he could find something to work on that it would help him from having an emotional breakdown. He yelled to the pilot, “Is there a way that I can see a schematic of the craft so that I can start to understand what I am working on?”

  The pilot yelled out, “Ship, bring up an interior schematic of TR-3B-1 on the right passenger wall and then arm weapons systems.”

  The schematics of the ship flashed onto
the wall next to Brian. His knowledge of computer systems and engineering was almost completely out of its depth as he looked at the TR-3B’s layout. He took a deep breath and began looking for some kind of a starting point that he could understand.

  Captain Granderson looked through his forward visual feed to see Garudasaurus hovering at Mustang’s eye level and tearing at the robot’s head and torso with his claws and talons. Mustang was attempting to grab the kaiju and pull him to the ground, but so far, Garudasaurus was managing to quickly strike the robot, move out of its range, and then strike again. Captain Granderson was aware that Garudasaurus was attacking in this method because only a few hundred feet behind the kaiju was a wave of several thousand people trying to evacuate the city. Garudasaurus was doing his best to prevent Mustang from capturing those people while at the same trying not to inadvertently hurt the people he was trying to protect.

  As soon as Captain Granderson had assessed the situation, he knew his best plan of attack. He flew the TR-3B behind the hovering Garudasaurus and then he lowered the craft into a hovering position lower than that of the kaiju and parallel to Mustang’s legs. Captain Granderson armed his heavy caliber machine guns and then fired them at Mustang’s legs. The bright orange bullets shredded the car parts that composed the robot’s legs to pieces. With the robot’s base obliterated, Garudasaurus was easily able to push Mustang onto its back. The robot fell onto the rubble of a decimated building with its arms thrown out at its side. Garudasaurus flew down and dug his talons into Mustang’s arms, pinning them to the ground. Garudasaurus then reached down with his claws and began tearing apart Mustang’s chest. Captain Granderson watched as tires and computer parts flew into the sky. Once Garudasaurus had completely destroyed the robot, Captain Granderson turned to his left to see the thousands of people who Mustang was chasing moving away from the city. Captain Granderson smiled to himself as he thought that there were several thousand people more that he could count as lives he saved against the number of lives that he had ended.

  Chagon moved as quickly as she could, slithering over rubble, bodies, and debris as she tried to reach Focus. The giant robot had made its way to outskirts of Detroit where another wave of people had gathered as they tried to flee the carnage that was occurring within the city. Focus was crushing most of the people below it with its giant feet, but it was also scooping up a few people and depositing them within its back. Chagon was fully aware that with each passing second, dozens of people were dying. It only took Chagon thirty seconds to reach Focus from where she had first started moving toward it, but in her mind, those thirty seconds were measured against the lives of over three hundred people.

  When she reached Focus, she wrapped the lower part of her body around the robot’s leg, stopping its forward progress. She then lifted the upper part of her body in front of the robot’s face and hissed at it. Focus was lifting up its hands to grab Chagon when Leviathan’s claws tore through the front of its chest. Leviathan dug his claws into opposite sides of the robot’s chest, and then with a roar, he tore the mech in half. Chagon slumped to the ground where she was showered by falling tires, circuit boards, and frozen bodies.

  With the last of the mech’s defeated, Chagon started the transformation back into her human form. As she was shrinking in size, the frozen bodies of the people Focus had captured became much easier for her to distinguish. When she had fully returned to her human form, she was completely naked and still covered in the blood of all of the corpses she had crawled over as Chagon. She knelt down next to the frozen body of a girl who was roughly her age. When she looked at the girl, she could see the terror that the young woman had felt as the robot grabbed her literally frozen on her face. Miki bent down over the girl and she started to cry.

  Leviathan was still enraged from the battle and he was stomping around the ruined city and roaring as he sought another opponent on which to vent his endless anger. Leviathan turned around and he saw the lithe form of Miki kneeling over the frozen body and crying. When he saw Miki, the anger inside of Leviathan began to subside. The kaiju slowed his breathing and calmed his mind. As he let go of the anger that fueled his kaiju form, Leviathan began to shrink in size as he turned back into Nick. When he had fully transformed back into his human form, Nick began walking over toward Miki. On his way toward Miki, he walked through the crushed remains of a laundry mat. He quickly looked through the wreckage where he found a relatively clean blanket and a pair of sweat pants. He slid the pants on himself and then he walked over to Miki and draped the blanket over her naked body.

  He placed his arm over Miki’s shoulder and held her tight. It was the second time today that he was holding her as she cried. Nick had known Miki his entire life. He knew that she was a soldier and that she was not prone to emotional breakdowns, but given the magnitude of what they had seen today, he couldn’t blame her for reacting the way that she was. He wanted to say more to her, but he needed to keep a portion of his focus on completing his transformation back into a human. Miki meant a lot to Nick. He was starting to realize that she meant far more to him than she knew.

  Garudasaurus and the TR-3B landed near Nick and Miki. Garudasaurus transformed himself back into Jerome and then he walked over to his teammates. He knelt down silently next to them and then he said a quick prayer for all the people who had died in Detroit.

  When Jerome had finished praying, Miki wiped her eyes clean and looked at her friend and leader. “Thank you, Jerome.” She turned her head toward Nick. “Thank you too, Nick.”

  Nick nodded in reply then he looked to Jerome. “What do we do next?”

  Jerome stood up and looked toward the TR-3B. “We get on the ship, we clean ourselves up, and then get an update from headquarters on how the EMP bombings are progressing. After we talk to headquarters, we go get Michelle. The Robogator was proof that these robots see us as a threat and that they are trying to adapt to us. My guess is that we will be seeing more robots built specifically for combat. We need our team to be at full strength for our next battle and we need to get to Michelle before those battle robots find her.”

  Chapter 9

  Horsemen Facility

  Clarissa was working feverishly to coordinate the flow of information from what remained of the outside world. The Horsemen were lucky to have found Brian Linke in Detroit to feed them information from the field, and now they were working hard to scour what was left of the internet to find more people like him. Clarissa had managed to contact several computer programmers around the Great Lakes. She patched these programmers into the Horsemen’s secure network. She was using these people to relay the information to the remaining population of the area to gather in the wilderness around the Great Lakes. She was also using these people to help inform the remaining population that the Kaiju Corps were fighting to save humanity. If the Kaiju Corps were able to survive long enough to meet back up with the survivors, they needed the survivors to see them as protectors and saviors rather than as monsters.

  The Instructor was also using whatever information that was at her disposal to coordinate the TR-3B EMP bombing runs that were taking place on cities around the world. Most importantly, she had been in contact with a programmer in New York City who had witnessed Bearadon’s battle. It seemed that after Bearadon had fought her way through the robots and took out one of the manufacturing plants that was creating them, she had collapsed from exhaustion. The programmer was able to give Michelle’s exact location to Clarissa. Clarissa then sent Michelle’s location to a TR-3B pilot who was scheduled to drop an EMP bomb on New York City. After he delivered his payload, the pilot was to pick up Michelle and then rendezvous with the rest of the Kaiju Corps.

  Clarissa quickly reviewed the progress the Horsemen were making dropping EMP bombs on cities around the world. It seemed that even with every one of their TR-3Bs in the air all over the world that they had only managed to drop EMPs on roughly fifteen percent of the world’s cities. That number, combined with the amount of manufacturing plants in
rural and suburban areas, meant that giant robots were still being produced at an alarming rate. The current numbers suggested that there were as many as three hundred robots that were already created and gathering people all over the planet. What was even more concerning was that the number of robots on the planet was still growing. Additionally, there were reports of larger robots of various descriptions that were simply sitting in the middle of the cities. She was reviewing this information in her mind when she saw an incoming transmission from Jerome.

  Clarissa shifted the transmission to the main screen in front of her. “Jerome, what’s the update from Detroit?”

  Jerome took a deep breath. “Most of the population of the city is dead. We were able to destroy the robots there and allow several hundred thousand people to escape the city. As you suggested that they might, the survivors seemed to be making their way along the side of the lake. Hopefully, once they get over the initial shock of what has occurred, they can be some of the people who form the insurgency.” Jerome took a step closer to the screen. “There was also a different kind of robot with the ones that were capturing and killing people. It was a giant Robogator that seemed to be specifically constructed for the purpose of battling us. It is my belief that the Signal will create more robots that are specifically designed to engage us and protect their catch and kill robots. I feel that we need Bearadon before we engage in our next mission in case we run into more of these battle robots. Do you have an update on her status?”