He stopped short of exiting, then rushed back to his bed. He reached over it towards the side table, grasping the small recording stick and the badge. He fumbled with them in his excitement, but got a firm grip on both items as he bolted out the door.
He had no idea what he was about to bear witness to, but given his current surroundings, he had no doubt whatsoever that it would be unlike anything he had ever seen before.
Neither General Tsujimori nor X had wasted a moment. The instant the klaxons began and Chakra made her call, they were up and ready. It was a habit they both had developed over years of military service.
They met before the special elevators which allowed for direct hull access. Security on this elevator used specially developed thumbprint scanners that were keyed exclusively to X and Tsujimori, making them the only ones on the whole ship who could access it. Then again, they were the only ones on the whole ship who ever needed to.
Above the sliding doors hung a sign that read “HULL ACCESS SHAFT – FOR USE BY SUPERMEN ONLY!!!” in both English and Japanese. One of the workers who had built the Akira had put that up as a joke, but it was accurate nonetheless.
The doors opened once both men pressed their thumbs to the scanners, and they stepped towards the opening at the same time. They stopped before colliding and paused, each waiting for the other to make the first move.
Tsujimori made a sweeping gesture towards the door. “Please, after you,” he said. “You Americans love charging blindly into battle, if Korea and Vietnam are any indication.”
X’s nose twitched at the comment, but he shot back instantly. “Remind me again, what do your pilots do when they run out of bullets? Kamikaze means ‘nose dive into the ship’, right?”
“Age before beauty, I think.”
“What’s wrong, Ishiro? You turning even more yellow?”
They might have continued, but a voice on the intercom – which was not Chakra’s, meaning she had abandoned her post yet again – reminded them that the bogies were drawing closer.
X knew exactly what Chakra’s absence meant, so he had to be quick.
He stepped onto the elevator first, and the General followed close behind.
As they rode to the top, the banter resumed.
“How about following my lead this time?” Tsujimori said. “I am the better strategist, after all.”
X laughed dryly. “Of the two of us, which one can fly?”
Chakra turned the corner just in time to see the elevator doors close.
She stamped her foot as her ears flattened angrily against her head. Too slow again. She was sure X and the General would have still been throwing insults at each other like they always did. They must have cut things short when they heard her replacement, which also meant X had already issued orders to lock down the hangar.
Crap.
She knew X was protecting her by acting this way, and it was as sweet as it was frustrating.
She tapped her fingers against the nearest section of wall as she pondered what to do next.
Well, no reason she couldn’t still watch the fight, and she knew the best seat in the house.
Richard had met Nancy in the gold-colored hall mere feet from his room, and she had led him to one of the Akira’s three observation decks, this one located near the back of the ship. Based on the flat discoid shape of the room, Richard guessed (correctly) that this was atop one of the reverse shark fin protuberances he had seen yesterday. The room itself, which was about ten feet in diameter, was completely empty, the only accoutrements being a metal railing before the massive picture windows that lined the wall. It provided a nearly-panoramic view of the outside, including the top of the mighty flying fortress. The sound of the rockets was noticeable, but muffled by the thickness of the glass and walls.
Nancy gave Richard a pair of binoculars, and pointed out the window. “They should be coming from over there.”
“Who are ‘they’?” asked Richard as he raised the binoculars. “Is it the Russians? Are we in their airspace?”
“A few of them have shown up in Russia before,” Nancy replied with a hint of a smirk, “but I doubt they’re the same ones from then.”
Richard was starting to grow weary of Nancy’s cryptic responses, but before he could ask for clarification, he saw the truth with his own eyes.
Through the binoculars, he could see them clearly, riding out of the rising sun like the Valkyries of Norse mythology, but these were not Valkyries. These things would have made the Valkyries turn tail and run.
They looked like rhinoceros beetles, the kind he remembered seeing in high school textbooks. Glints of metallic blue and green shone on their shells as they flew, and each had nasty-looking horns jutting from their heads like the lances of charging knights, but what struck him most of all was the size. For them to be visible from so far away, they must have to have been huge, at least the length of a jet fighter.
And there were hundreds of them.
Richard was rendered speechless as he remembered a report he had done back in Fifty-nine. He had interviewed a family who said their car had been attacked by a giant insect of some kind. A wasp, if he recalled it correctly. He was the only person they had spoken to who believed them.
Yet even belief had not prepared him for the shock of actually seeing such creatures in the moment, plain as day before his eyes. The rational piece of his brain that always remained skeptical so as to rule out hoaxers and crackpots quietly slinked away and locked itself in a closet as stunned awe took control of Richard’s train of thought.
Nancy noticed the huge smile spreading across his face. “You see ‘em?” she asked.
Richard nodded. “They’re real,” he whispered, stunned. “The giants do exist.” He turned to face Nancy, and excitement filled his spirits to the brim. “They’re real! All this time I’ve investigated monster sightings, but I never saw one myself. I- I always had to go on pure faith that they existed, but now…” He grabbed Nancy by the shoulders. “I was right to believe! They’re real! They’re really real! Oh, what I’d give for a camera!”
“We have cameras all over the ship, recording every detail,” Nancy said. She did not seem as amazed as Richard did. “We’ll get you whatever footage you need, and we guarantee crystal clarity. No blurry black-and-white Polaroids. The device I gave you has a camera on it, too, if you’d prefer that.”
Richard snapped his fingers as he remembered the device. He whipped it from his pocket, switched it on, and looked back out at the approaching bugs. “What do you, um… Do they have a name? Like, a species, or something?”
“The Latin name is nearly unpronounceable. We just call them Herc-Rhinos. Herc as in Hercules. I never really liked that name myself, but no one’s come up with a better one yet.”
Chakra appeared from the entrance, pushing between Richard and Nancy as she entered. “Did I miss anything?” she asked as she leaned on the rails, catching her breath from running.
Nancy shook her head. “Not yet,” she said, then added, “Miss the lift again?”
Chakra’s ears drooped as she scowled. “Yeah,” she said.
Following close behind Chakra was Captain Catigiri, who nodded to Richard in acknowledgement as he entered.
“Oh…Hi,” Richard said in response, not really knowing what else to say beyond that.
Something about the way the Captain stared at him without saying a word made Richard feel very awkward. He was overcome by the desire to say something in the hopes of dispelling the sensation. “You’re, uh… You’re Captain Hirata Catigiri, if I recall. Am I remembering that correctly?”
Hirata nodded, but said nothing.
“So, what do you do on this ship?” Richard asked.
Hirata half-shrugged and remained silent, but looked at Richard with an expression that conveyed a sense of coy amusement.
Richard felt even more awkward. “Um… Sorry if this sounds rude, but, uh, can you actually talk?”
Hirata stared at Richard as thoug
h he were mulling over how to respond, then stepped past him to look out over the hull of the Akira without saying a word.
Nancy patted a confused Richard on the shoulder. “Don’t take any of that personally,” she said. “He’s just…” She paused as she searched for the right descriptor. “He’s quiet.”
Richard shrugged. It was not a great explanation, but with everything else he had to pay attention to at the moment, it would have to suffice until later. He went to the window and stood beside Chakra.
“Stop crowding me, you oily-haired swish,” the dog-eared girl snapped, a hint of a growl in her voice.
Richard blinked, taken aback by the reception, and looked back at Nancy with a bewildered expression.
“That you can take personally,” she said.
As Richard shifted away from Chakra, a thought struck him. The family who had seen the giant wasp said it had attacked them. “These Herc-Rhinos,” he said. “Are they hostile?”
As if on cue, bolts of bright pink light shot from the bugs’ horns and struck the ship, rocking it violently.
Question answered.
In response to the attack, panels on the Akira’s hull opened to reveal gun turrets, which rose out quickly and began firing continuous streams of anti-aircraft rounds at the attacking insects. The staccato blasting rattled the ship as thin wisps of smoke drifted from the barrels with each new burst.
Some of the bullets found their marks, obliterating their targets in a spray of sickening yellow slime, but most of them sailed off into the distance without hitting a thing.
Even as he was drawn in by the rhythm of the guns and the brightness of the bugs’ attack, Richard noticed from the corner of his eye something moving across the massive gray-brown panels of the Akira’s surface.
He glanced down, and saw that the something moving was actually two somethings moving.
People.
General Tsujimori and X.
“What the-” he half-exclaimed, his brain not quite grasping what he was seeing, since it made so little sense. “Are they-? What are those two doing out there?”
Chakra squealed excitedly as she caught sight of X and the General. “Watch and take notes, mister! This is gonna be so cool!”
The Herc-Rhinos were nearly upon them. The turrets had barely made a dent in the fast-approaching swarm.
As usual, it fell to X and General Ishiro Tsujimori to dispose of the threat.
X flicked his wrists. With a click, a pair of narrow gray rectangles nearly as long as his torso shot from his sleeves into his hands. As he gripped them, they began to change, snapping and folding into the unmistakable shape of massive handguns. From the underside of the barrels, gleaming blades shot out to form deadly bayonets. From the base of each hilt were leather bands which ran back into the sleeves of his trench coat.
General Tsujimori removed and pocketed his purple rubber gloves. His exposed hands glowed bluish white from within, and the air around him crackled and hummed with electricity.
X took a few running steps and leapt into the air. Fire shot from the soles of his boots, launching him towards the swarm at speeds that would have killed a normal human. He dove and swerved to avoid the searing pink lasers streaming towards him, and his guns spoke a thunderous reply.
Three Herc-Rhinos flew past X, managing to land and cling to the hull, which meant it was the General’s turn to act. With dramatic flair, he ran and drove one of his glowing fists towards the closest of the bugs. It was not a strong punch physically, and he pulled it at the last second to avoid shattering his bones, but the strength was not what mattered. As he made contact, a pulse of electricity surged from his body into the creature’s, and arcs of pure white lightning engulfed it before it burst in a puff of acrid blue smoke.
As he dispatched of the second bug in similar fashion, the third bug figured out what was going on. Certain it had the element of surprise, it charged him from behind, hoping to impale him on its horn.
With a speed and grace that belied how old he looked, Tsujimori leapt straight up from a standing position and executed a graceful backflip over the charging Herc-Rhino’s back. In midair, his hands reached down toward the insect and unleashed a furious storm of lightning bolts upon it. Those bolts that missed surged through the Akira’s hull and shot up through the insect’s feet.
The creature bucked and flailed like a wild horse before bursting into another cloud of smoke.
Without missing a beat, Tsujimori landed hard on the ship, then swept his hands in front of him, creating a net of lightning bolts large enough to catch most of the approaching lasers like fish. He quickly drew his hands together and repelled the bolts back into the swarm.
Within the swarm, X was still blasting and slicing away at the attacking insects with his handheld cannons. He always aimed for the weak points in the bugs’ armor or for their softer undersides, and despite the speed at which he darted about, he had yet to miss.
He barely had time to react as one of the bugs took a swipe at his face by bucking its head upward and catching him with its barbed horn.
It was a fascinatingly gruesome display. X reeled back, a thick spray of blood bursting from where his face had been. It was the blood, however, that was the strange part. Amongst the expected red trails were streams of creamy white and dark blue, and shredded mechanical objects which glinted silver in the ever-increasing sunlight.
The splatter suddenly froze in midair, then reversed itself, flowing back towards his body as if someone was playing a film reel backwards.
Just as suddenly as it had been erased, X’s face had reappeared.
And it looked very angry.
X jabbed both bayonets into the offending bug’s head and fired until its face was rendered as mangled as his had been. His regenerated face twisted into a wicked, vengeful smile as the beetle was slaughtered.
On the observation deck, Richard was awestruck.
As a reporter, he had a million questions about what he was seeing, but as a sane man, he just could not form the words to express them. All he was able to eventually stammer out was, “How… What are they?”
As had become her routine since meeting him, Nancy was there with a calm voice and a ready explanation. “You remember those Captain America comics from back in the day?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Richard nodded, unsure of why she was bringing up comic books. Then again, the scene before him did look like a comic artist’s dream rendered in three dimensions.
“It’s kind of like that, except it’s real. During the War, both the Allies and the Axis were engaged in genetic experiments, trying to make superhuman soldiers to lead their armies. You’re looking at the only ones to have seen action on the battlefield and survived.”
She pointed to the General, who was continuing to electrically pummel any bugs unfortunate enough to get close to or land on the ship. “General Ishiro Tsujimori of Japan, a human battery of sorts, capable of conducting, generating, and unleashing electrical energy to devastating effect.”
She pointed to the swarm, where X continued to slaughter every bug he could see with his gun-swords. “Special Agent X of America, the world’s only successful human cyborg, enhanced with regenerative abilities that effectively make him immortal.”
Nancy glanced over at Chakra, and a mischievous grin snaked its way across her lips. “Even Chakra here was a test subject for Unit 731, and has powers of her own. Watch this.” She turned to Hirata. “Captain, please do the honors.”
Hirata whipped a loaded revolver from the holster at his side and aimed the barrel at Chakra’s head.
Chakra was about to object, but the bullet that shattered her skull silenced her. Blood, brains, and bone fragments splattered across the windows, and her body slumped over the railing, completely lifeless.
Hirata returned his gun to its holster, his blank expression showing that he was completely unaffected by his heinous act. Nancy, too, remained calm and collected.
Richard, on the other hand, rec
oiled, his awe at the spectacle outside replaced by horror at the murder which had occurred right beside him. This is what finally pushed him over the edge into a panic. “What the-?” he shouted. “Good God!!! Why did-?”
“Give it a moment,” Nancy said calmly as she patted him on the shoulder.
Chakra groaned as she stood back up, her head perfectly intact. There was no wound, no blood, indeed, no sign of any trauma at all. Aside from the offal which remained splattered across the windows, it was as if nothing had happened at all.
The dog-eared girl massaged the back of her head where the bullet had entered as if all that ailed her was a pounding headache. “Ow,” she grumbled, more aggravated than hurt.
“See?” Nancy said. “She’s completely fine. Nothing can kill her. Believe me, she’s survived a lot. Chakra here was an attempt to turn a normal human into a yokai using science. It’s really too bad all the research that went into her was lost, but that’s how war goes sometimes.”
“You could’ve just told him that!” Chakra snapped.
Nancy’s calm demeanor did not break under Chakra’s glare. “Consider that your punishment for abandoning your post again.”
Chakra huffed loudly before turning back to continue watching the fight outside.
Richard blinked as he stared at Chakra, his mind forcing itself to accept what he had just witnessed. “So…” he began, then paused to organize his thoughts before continuing. “So the multi-colored blood, the lightning, the dog parts, all of that stuff was done to them in a lab?”
Nancy nodded. “Pretty much, yes.” She laughed a little. “You know, it’s kind of funny. There was a time when X and Ishiro would have been using their powers to try killing each other, but these days they have to work together.”
Her voice became slightly grave as she continued. “You see, Richard, they’re the only soldiers in the entire world who can do this job. They are the monsters protecting mankind from the monsters who want to destroy it.”
General Tsujimori and X had managed to thin the swarm considerably, but a dozen Herc-Rhinos had still landed on the Akira, and were starting to claw their way through the fuselage. General Tsujimori knew it was time to pull out the big guns.
Operation Red Dragon: The Daikaiju Wars: Part One Page 6