CIGOR checked his memory against the databanks and geographical information again. He was definitely on the right island.
So where were the Kaiju?
He scanned again, this time for anomalies, and that was when he found the sinkholes.
Rabu Nii was pockmarked with large, perfectly round openings leading deep underground which had not been there when the island had been checked last month.
In addition, the volcano at the island’s center showed all the signs of eruption except for lava. Of course, CIGOR knew that an eruption here was impossible, as Rabu Nii’s volcano had been extinct for ages. Yet something had clearly come out of it, and it had come out recently.
He noticed indentations in the crumbled rocks on the mountainside. They were evenly spaced apart, rounded at the back with three prongs at the front.
He knew what these were.
Footprints.
Footprints larger than any normal Kaiju would leave.
Suddenly, the pieces all came together in CIGOR’s mind. Legends and myths had said that the master of the dinosaurs, a beast named Allorex, resided somewhere in this island chain, but no evidence had been found to suggest Rabu Nii was the place.
However, a thorough search had never been carried out. The resident Kaiju had been too ravenous to allow it. So the island had simply been quarantined.
The creatures on this island had not been trapped. They had been protecting their slumbering master.
And now their master was awake.
All this time Operation Red Dragon had left Rabu Nii alone, and they should have been taking measures to wipe it off the map literally as well as metaphorically.
The sinkholes were tunnels. The dinosaurs were travelling underground, and CIGOR had no clue where they were heading yet.
He flew back to the Akira as fast as his rocket could push him.
Michael Sun awoke and instantly felt that something was amiss, but he could not figure out what it was.
He flicked on the light beside his bed, rubbed his eyes, and looked around his bedroom. Nothing looked out of place. He got up, stretched, and walked to the window, slowly drawing the curtains to look outside.
Beyond his window stretched the deserts of Nevada, looking the same as they had since he had arrived three months prior. Nothing wrong there, either.
He glanced at his reflection in the mirror that hung on the closet door. Aside from looking like he had just awoken, which was to be expected, he still saw no evidence of anything wrong.
He grabbed the glass of water on the nightstand, and was just about ready to write off his unnamable unease as the product of some nightmare he could not recall when he turned on the TV across from his bed. What greeted him was a news report of a disaster which had struck Fukuoka, Japan, complete with grainy but unmistakable footage of two men he knew quite well fighting dinosaurs in the streets.
Fury boiled through Michael’s veins at the sight. He gripped the glass in his hand so tightly that it started to crack.
Though he was alone, his rage needed an outlet, so he began to yell, “Those sons of-” before a new image stopped the final offending word in his throat.
The image was a red dragon – a real red dragon – marching into the city.
Kozerah.
Michael Sun had never seen Kozerah before, but he had heard stories, spoken to eyewitnesses. Amongst all the monsters roaming the planet, Kozerah was unique. This could only be him.
The glass fell from his hand, landing on the bed and spilling its contents on the sheets.
Chakra had missed her opportunity to sneak out of the hangar before everyone else returned to the Akira. In fact, she had landed the Kuroga at the exact same time as the shuttle.
She had hoped that the events of the day would have sent everyone springing into action elsewhere on the ship, allowing her to skulk away without being seen and get back to her station with no one the wiser. Unfortunately for her, X and General Tsujimori wanted to commend the mystery pilot for his-or-her bravery in taking the experimental craft into battle, or maybe deliver a verbal thrashing for insubordination.
Just her luck either way.
She had opened the rear hatch but had yet to descend. She knew that X would probably be angry. She did not fear repercussions from him – he would never maliciously hurt her – but disappointment in betraying trust could be the most damaging thing in a relationship like theirs. Depending on how he took this…
She shook her head, banishing the thought. No secret could be kept forever. If she did not reveal herself now, someone on the bridge would eventually tell them when she had run off, and X would easily fill in the blanks from there. It would be better to come clean on her own here and now.
Maybe.
She descended from the Kuroga slowly, like a condemned prisoner being led to the gallows, eyes focused on the floor, ears drooping, tail tucked sheepishly between her legs.
Chakra spared a quick glance up. She did not see the General’s expression. She was focused entirely on X, trying to figure out what he was thinking.
Unfortunately, his face was completely unreadable. He might have been shocked, enraged, or having a heart attack. For all she knew, he was comatose. Her eyes shot back to the floor.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly, tears welling up in her eyes as the shame of her actions increased. “I know you don’t-”
Her vision was suddenly obscured by black cloth, and she felt arms wrap gently around her.
X drew her close to him in a hug, saying nothing.
She allowed herself to relax and melt into his warm, comforting embrace.
*****
“You called that thing Kozerah,” Richard said as he followed Nancy and Dr. Armitage out of the hangar. His adrenaline was still pumping, and his mind was racing with questions. “Why did you call him that?”
Armitage made a small sweeping gesture with his hand as he shrugged. “Because that is his name, Mr. Godfrey,” he said, as if the answer were obvious.
Richard shook his head. “Alright, let me put it this way: Why did you name him that?”
“We didn’t,” Nancy replied.
Richard blinked, confused. “What? You said his name was Kozerah!”
“Yes, we did.”
“So why did you call him that?”
“Like the good doctor said, that’s his name.”
Richard sighed loudly. This was getting very frustrating. “Look, this Kozerah is the first monster I’ve heard anyone refer to by a proper name, not just as a species. There’s got to be a reason for that, so what is it?”
Nancy shrugged. “We call him that because that’s his name, Richard.”
“That’s not an answer! That’s hyperbole! Where did the name come from? For heaven’s sake, give me a straight answer for once!”
Nancy stopped and turned on a dime to stare right into Richard’s eyes, her calm demeanor having given way to offense. “Excuse me?” She jabbed her finger into his chest. “I’ve given you plenty of straight answers since we shanghaied you!”
Armitage blinked, though his face remained stoic and his tone changed only slightly to express his surprise. “You shanghaied him?”
Nancy, remembering that Armitage did not know how they had gotten to Richard, adjusted her collar nervously. “We believe in efficiency,” she said, hoping that answer was enough.
“I’ll admit,” Richard said, “that you have explained a lot to me, but it feels like for every question that gets a clear answer, another two show up that get nothing but double talk or rain checks! I feel like Hercules fighting the Hydra! I’m clearly on this ship because you want me to see all this absurdity, so why not just tell me everything that’s going on and be done with it?”
Nancy stepped closer to him, her eyes narrowing. “I tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it, and I always let a sufficient amount of time pass for you to process what you’ve learned.”
“Process?”
“I know every
one you’ve met so far acts real casual about the ‘absurdity’, as you call it, but that’s because we live this stuff every day. You, on the other hand, had never seen anything even remotely paranormal for yourself before we picked you up and brought you aboard. You just trusted that it was real, and that the answers would somehow make sense to you when you got them. Well, Richard, the only way those answers will ever make sense is if you have time to accept them first.”
She pointed in the general direction of the city. “The people in Fukuoka just got a very rough introduction to the true nature of the world. We’ve eased you into it as gently as possible.”
Armitage cocked an eyebrow. “By kidnapping him?”
“I’m trying to win an argument here, Daisuke!”
“He’s made it this far, and he’s seen Kozerah with his own eyes.” Armitage nodded approvingly at Richard. “I’d say he is adjusting well enough. Perhaps we should be a bit more forthwith about Kozerah.”
Silence fell over the trio.
“The easiest way to put it,” Nancy eventually said, “is to say that Kozerah is essentially a god.”
“A god?” Richard blinked in astonished confusion. He had enough knowledge of folklore and mythology to know what a god was, but Kozerah did not fit his mental image. “You mean like Zeus or Thor?”
“Try Cthulhu,” Nancy replied. “I guess we’re due for another trip to the archives. Come on.”
As the trio headed for the archives once again, Richard kept pace with Armitage. “Thanks for that,” he said.
Armitage nodded. “Of course. I am pleased to know your mind is as strong as ever. You truly are just the man for this job.”
“What job?”
Armitage lowered his head slightly, though his expression remained unaltered. Richard was starting to wonder if the man had any emotions at all. “Though I took your side just now, Miss Boardwalk is nonetheless correct,” he said. “Sometimes the truth is best served in small doses over time. It is important that you not know your full role just yet. As a reporter, I am sure you know that you must get the whole story before you set it down on paper. Moving forward, you must apply that mindset to this little adventure.”
Coming from his mentor, Richard took this lack of an answer somewhat better than he might have taken it from Nancy.
CHAPTER 12
Across the ocean, on the coast of Chile, a small fishing village sat in the foothills of the Andes mountain range. It was called Boca de Vacca, and there was really nothing special about it at all. Only one thing of significance ever happened there, and it occurred in 1964, mere hours after Kozerah had defeated the Kaiju in Fukuoka.
The sun was just starting to sink beneath the horizon, and the town was still buzzing with activity as though it were midday. None of the people there were prepared for the deadly swarm of black hornets that flew in from the sea.
There were hundreds of these hornets, each angular exoskeleton bigger than a car, and their stingers were aimed like guns at the village. Worst of all, they were not alone.
Behind them, marching through the offshore waters as if it were a wading pool, was a beast unlike anything the villagers had ever seen before. It should have been another insect, like a beetle or a ladybug, but its upright posture made its two-hundred-foot frame look vaguely humanoid as it swaggered towards shore. The exoskeleton was a sickly olive green and segmented in odd patterns that made it look like a suit of armor. The arms seemed longer than they ought to have been, brushing the water as they swayed back and forth, and below the elbows, they appeared to be metallic, glinting a dull shade of silver in the fading sunlight. The shell on its back hung like a cape worn by an emperor.
The head was especially curious. The multifaceted eyes were yellow orbs which wrapped around the sides of the cranium, lacking pupils or eyelids, yet somehow the human onlookers in the village could tell that the beast was staring at them. Above these eyes were a pair of horns that might have been mandibles if the beast crawled on its belly like a normal bug, but since it stood upright, they looked more like the horns of the Devil. Lastly was a jagged x-shaped pattern that opened like a mouth, from which emanated a deep staccato roar. It raised one of its metallic hands, which ended in a shallow bowl tipped with three short, sharp prongs, and roared again. It looked almost like a general ordering his soldiers to charge.
Upon hearing this terrible sound, the people of Boca de Vacca turned to run, instinctively heading to the Andes as they might when faced with a deadly oncoming storm. To some in the crowd, it seemed a pointless retreat since the hornets were approaching so fast that there was no chance of outrunning them. It seemed even more hopeless when balls of red fire shot from their stingers, bursting on the street and the buildings, raining debris upon the terrified villagers.
Ear-piercing screeches swept down from the mountains, stopping the crowd’s retreat even as another red orb burst in front of them.
The source was easy enough to see. Descending from the peaks of the Andes, moving in a terrifying synchronized murmuration, were more enormous bird-like creatures than anyone in the crowd could count.
As they drew closer, the crowd could tell that the creatures were not really birds at all, but looked more like Pterosaurs. Their mighty wings and lithe bodies were covered by a leathery hide rather than feathers. Their long, sharp beaks came in all shapes and sizes, some sporting horns, others lined with rows of sharp teeth.
One man in the crowd, who had once been a pilot before his helicopter had been destroyed in 1952, trembled at the sight and made the Sign of the Cross over his chest.
“Dios mio,” Carlos Hernandez whispered in abject horror. “Not again…”
The mumuration twisted and dove. For an instant, it seemed as if they, too, might attack the defenseless crowd.
At the last moment, the pterosaurs collectively swooped upward, the rush of wind stripping the shingles from rooftops and knocking many an onlooker to the ground. With incredible force, the pterosaurs plowed into the hornets, and the sky erupted in a furious battle of talons ripping through exoskeletons and stingers piercing through wings.
The villagers were not so awestruck by the sight that they had any desire to see the battle play out, at least not while they were still right below it. With the hornets distracted, the humans could continue running to safety, and they did, even more panicked than they were before. Since the mountains were no longer safe, they scattered in random directions, running anywhere that seemed like it might offer them some kind of shelter from the apocalyptic battle in the sky.
Carlos dared to glance upwards when a heavy shadow fell over the town.
Above was another pterosaur, only this one was bigger.
So much bigger.
He remembered this one as well.
The master of the bugs assessed the situation from the safety of the water.
He had led this assault himself to prove his worth to the other masters. The insects were considered inferior to the dinosaurs and sea monsters. If he were the first to lead a successful attack against the humans, he knew his kind would be treated differently. Perhaps they would have the advantage when the world was restored to the way it had been.
Things had turned bad quickly, though. His hornets had been caught off guard by the pterosaurs, and now their master, the traitor, was coming to confront him directly, and she had the unfair advantage of flight. Though he had managed to spit a few fireballs at her, she had dodged them effortlessly, and countered with fire of her own that scorched his shell.
He turned and fled quickly back into the sea, ducking beneath the waves before the traitor could lay a claw on him.
This was not cowardice, he thought. This was strategy. This was practical. He could fight any of the other masters under the right circumstances.
These simply were not the right circumstances.
Retreat was the only option. His hornets would simply have to fend for themselves. They were drones, anyway. No great loss.
It was more i
mportant that he survive to achieve victory later.
“We need to talk about earlier.”
X sounded serious, but his tone showed no anger as yet. He and Chakra had gone straight to their quarters from the hangar, neither one speaking or releasing the other until the door was closed. This was a new behavior for X, who was resistant to public displays of affection, especially while on duty. That he had held her in his arms with little regard for his own image was a new development that Chakra liked.
Any romantic mood that might have sprung from it, however, dissolved as soon as they were alone, which was the inverse of what usually happened.
“I don’t want you pulling a stunt like that again,” X continued. “You’re sitting out the next fight, and whatever fights happen after it.”
Chakra sighed in exasperation. “Why?” she asked. “Didn’t I handle myself well enough out there? I sure thought so, especially since the Kuroga’s never been tested in combat before.”
“I agree. You performed excellently out there and proved the Kuroga’s worth in battle. Even so, you’re not doing it again.”
“And again I ask, why?”
“Because you’ll be safe here on the Akira.”
Chakra could not suppress a laugh. “Safe? From what, dying? X, I’m like you, remember? I can’t die! You do know how many times I’ve been killed since we first met, right?”
“Yes, and I’ve hated every time it’s happened!”
X’s reply stopped the argument for a moment. There had been a raw emotion in his voice when he spoke those words that belied his gruff exterior. To Chakra’s canine ears, he sounded vulnerable, which was an emotion even she had never heard from him before.
His head hung low. “I know you’ll come back to life no matter what,” he said as softly as his rough voice would allow, “but every time you die…” He sat on their bed, averting his eyes from his wife. “Chakra, I hate seeing you die. Even though I know you’ll come back, I hate it. I hate even thinking about it.” He looked up, his glowing eyes staring deep into hers. “I’m a soldier. Seeing people I care about die in battle is part of my job, and I have no illusions about that. But you’re my wife, Chakra. I never want you to be in that kind of danger.” His eyes lowered again. “It cuts me deeper than anything else in this world.”
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