One down.
Despite a few close calls, CIGOR had managed to keep his battle with Panzer Indigo in the air, but he knew it could not last much longer. His rocket was starting to overheat, meaning he would have to land soon to prevent damaging it, but if he landed before the robot had been incapacitated, it was bound to attack the others.
An upward rush of air distracted him long enough for Panzer Indigo to land a solid uppercut to his chin, sending him spiraling once more.
Clearly, CIGOR had no choice. He had to land. He would simply have to engage Panzer Indigo on the ground.
Chakra pulled the Kuroga around in front of Panzer Indigo’s head. The robot had no reaction, or if it did, she could not tell what it was.
After it had knocked CIGOR down, Chakra was seriously considering pumping bullets into the machine’s eyes. They seemed about as fragile as any ordinary lightbulbs. If she could blind Panzer Indigo, it might retreat to Groom Lake. At the same time, she knew that directly attacking the robot herself could be considered an attack against the United States military, which could land her in serious trouble. Rumor had it the military had a formula on file which could permanently kill her, and if they did, treason was an excellent reason to test it.
Something behind Panzer Indigo’s head caught her eye, and once she realized what was happening, it was already too late to avoid catastrophe.
Andrea swooped in behind the machine, her head lowered in similar fashion to a charging rhinoceros. She was diving fast. Very fast. So fast that Panzer Indigo had only just started to turn around when the gigantic blade atop the Pterosaur’s beak pierced its shoulder and completely severed its left arm. Oil and grease poured from the robot’s body like blood, spraying in an upward arc as Andrea slammed her wing like a fist at the machine, sending him careening away.
Chakra began to wonder why Andrea was attacking Panzer Indigo, whether she was protecting CIGOR or was just clearing the sky for her flock. She had no time to wonder for very long, though, since Panzer Indigo’s foot kicked out as he fell, shearing off her ship’s right wing. This would have been enough to send her into a tailspin, but Andrea’s continued forward momentum brought a sudden rush of hurricane-force winds with it, sending the Kuroga tumbling out of control even faster.
Chakra felt her spine straining under the g-forces.
She blacked out.
Panzer Indigo fell like a blazing silver comet, knocking Barracudasaurus in the head before landing in an awkward sitting position atop a pile of rubble, his back leaning against an apartment complex.
He looked very much like a marionette whose strings had been cut seated upon a throne of crushed skyscrapers.
Kozerah approached the fallen machine, curiosity filling his mind.
This was something he had not expected. What was this thing, and where had it come from? It looked like a human, but was as large as him and made of the same stuff as the floating log that was raining fire on the enemy Kaiju.
It looked like it was trying to move, but its limbs sat at odd angles, broken and useless. Was this thing alive? Was it like CIGOR?
Barracudasaurus’ warbling war cry drew him back to his original mission. The metal giant, whatever it was, did not require any more of his attention. Right now, there was a fight to win.
Kozerah turned sharply to face his foe.
By complete accident, his tail slammed into the metal giant’s head, knocking it clean off its shoulders. The head landed with a loud thud on a street some fifteen blocks away. Without it, the body went limp as system after system shut down.
Panzer Indigo was no more.
In Groom Lake, Colonel Stingray glared at Sam Sigma, who was stunned by the defeat of the machine on which mankind’s victory had depended.
“Care to explain to me how that happened, Sigma?” Stingray shouted, livid at the outcome.
Sigma cleared his throat before answering, just as baffled as everyone else. “I… Well, it was just a prototype.”
Stingray jabbed his finger into Sigma’s chest as he growled. “I’d strongly advise you to have a better explanation than that for the Press!”
A sadistic smile crossed Sigma’s face. “I don’t have to explain anything to the Press, George. I don’t officially exist, nor does this entire facility. All anyone will know in the morning is that Panzer Indigo has US Military insignias on it, and that you signed off on its construction.”
He gently pushed Stingray’s accusatory finger aside. Between that and the Colonel’s slack jaw, he knew he was in the clear.
His smile became even more insipid. “Good luck with that explanation, George. You’ll need it.”
He turned and left, seeing no reason to remain in the presence of a soon-to-be-disgraced colonel anymore.
Chakra blinked her eyes open, disoriented and uncertain about what had just happened. Had she died again? Her back did not ache the way it usually did whenever it was broken. She might have been lucky and skirted death this time, but she had no idea how. The last thing she recalled before blacking out was that the Kuroga was in a tailspin, and she was going to crash. What had happened?
As her senses returned to full functionality, she became aware of how cold it was, and that wind was whistling past her ears.
Then she realized that she was being carried.
She looked up, and there was X, trench coat billowing in the breeze, carrying her back to the Akira. Below, she saw the Kuroga, mostly intact save the missing wing, jutting out of a skyscraper like a discarded shuriken. The cockpit windshield had been shattered, and given where she was, she could guess what had happened while she was out.
Chakra melted at the thought as she snuggled up close to her husband.
One ship besides the Kuroga had stayed behind in spite of the retreat order, and it was piloted by Captain Hirata Catigiri.
Slowly, he lowered his shuttle close to the rooftop where General Tsujimori stood observing the progress of the battle.
The General pulled himself up onto the wing of the fighter and walked up to the cockpit, where he knelt down. With the last bit of energy he was willing to spare, he placed his bare hands against the fuselage and magnetized them.
“Back to the ship, Captain,” he said through the com. “We’ve done all we can here.”
The ship ascended.
General Tsujimori scanned the battlefield below. Yes, Exoskel was dead, and it looked like Panzer Indigo had been dealt with as well.
He was right. Mankind had done everything it could.
It was up to the Daikaiju now.
CHAPTER 21
“Should we pursue the bugs, Ma’am?”
Nancy weighed the helmsman’s question in her mind. With Exoskel gone, the bugs had no one to coordinate their attack anymore. If left to their own devices, it was possible that a new master might rise from their ranks, and the problem would start all over again. That was just a theory, of course; no living human had ever witnessed the death of a Daikaiju before, so no one knew what happened in the absence of one. Destroying the bugs while they were weakened might be a wise move.
At the same time, though, the bugs were retreating. They could have stayed and continued attacking, maybe dispersed and rampaged elsewhere, but instead, they were fleeing as quickly as they could. That meant they were not a threat without Exoskel’s guidance.
“Ma’am?” the helmsman asked again.
Nancy shook her head. “Keep firing at them until they’re out of range, but don’t go after them.” She looked out the window at the city. “Once they’re gone, keep blasting at the lizards, then follow the same policy once their masters are down.”
Daisuke Armitage, who stood beside Nancy, gave her a bemused look. “You really have no doubt in your mind whatsoever that we’ll be victorious, do you?”
She nodded. “None at all. We will win.”
In spite of Nancy’s confidence, victory did not exactly seem assured when one appraised the battlefield. Armadagger was wounded and had curled back u
p into an armored ball so he could heal, an act which effectively removed him from the fight. Worse than that, there were still three enemy Daikaiju in Tokyo, and at the moment, in spite of Exoskel’s death, they were winning.
A well-placed tail swipe from Wanirah swept Kozerah’s feet out from under him. Allorex darted in from behind, locking his teeth onto the red behemoth’s neck. Kozerah thrashed as he was strangled, but the dinosaur did not release him. Meanwhile, Andrea and Barracudasaurus were at an impasse, each taking pot shots that kept missing their targets, neither one getting close enough to the other to do any real harm.
CIGOR, freshly recovered from his rough return to the ground, took all of this in, and determined where he could do the most good.
He leapt into the fray, his scissor-hands snapping wildly. The blades closed on Allorex’s tail, cleanly slicing off the tip, which flew upward and impaled itself on a radio tower.
The dinosaur wailed in pain, releasing Kozerah from his chokehold.
Kozerah immediately punched his attacker in the snout. With Allorex dazed, he could catch his breath, or at least he could if Wanirah was not charging him, jaws agape.
CIGOR stepped in once more, catching the alligator by the throat in his blades. Wanirah’s neck was too thick for even CIGOR’s razor-sharp blades to slice all the way through, but he now had an idea of how to finish the gator off.
He craned his neck over to place his head inside Wanirah’s gaping maw, then projected a force field down the gator’s gullet.
Wanirah’s body swelled like a balloon as the force field expanded.
Then he burst in similar fashion.
As bloody pieces of alligator rained on Tokyo, Kozerah rose and grunted at CIGOR in an expression of gratitude. At their feet, the remaining army of oversized lizards and snakes which had been the fallen Daikaiju’s subjects fled into the water.
Two enemies down.
Now victory was within reach.
Allorex charged once more, leaping into the air from behind Kozerah, hoping to once again catch him off guard.
Without even turning to look first, Kozerah delivered a sharp backhanded blow to the dinosaur in midair, knocking him into a raging fire that scalded his scaly hide before he rolled out of it. Though he was still breathing, he would not be getting up any time soon.
Allorex was done. He just had to be finished off now. Kozerah and CIGOR approached to deliver their killing blows.
An anguished cry from Andrea, punctuated by the bursting of concrete and buckling of steel, caught their attention. The pterosaur had been caught by the leg, and Barracudasaurus was swinging her around like a child swinging a ragdoll, slamming her into the surrounding buildings.
Kozerah roared and charged to her aid.
CIGOR started to follow, but stopped when he noticed something from the corner of his eye, or rather a lack of something.
Where Allorex had fallen, there was now a gaping hole, into which his saurian subjects were pouring like water. The tremendous carnosaur was nowhere to be found.
For a moment, CIGOR hesitated to follow Kozerah and pondered his next move. Should he pursue the dinosaurs? Allorex was clearly not dead, meaning he could still pose a threat in the future when he inevitably recovered.
Then again, he and his forces were retreating. Their threat to the human race, at least for the moment, was neutralized.
CIGOR chose to let the coward run. The dinosaurs now knew what they were up against. It would be a long time before they tried to attack mankind again.
Kozerah drove his shoulder hard into Barracudasaurus’ ribs, causing the fish-lizard to release his grip on Andrea, who went hurtling through the air for almost a mile before crashing hard on the pavement. With her out of the enemy’s reach, Kozerah began his own attack.
He had not yet been allowed to really let loose on an opponent in this fight, as his foes had been tag-teaming him the whole time. They had been smart. He was the strongest Daikaiju on the battlefield, so his enemies’ strategy had been to overwhelm him in an attempt to wear him down.
Now, though, Barracudasaurus was alone. His partners were either dead or fleeing, and his subjects were confined to the sea.
That meant Kozerah could finally unleash his full fury.
The titans sparred, throwing and blocking punches, kicks, head-butts, and tail swipes with reckless abandon. Despite their great size, the pair became a swirling blur of claws and teeth. Buildings burst around them. The ground heaved and buckled at every footfall. For a time, they seemed equally matched.
This illusion of equality did not last for very long.
Barracudasaurus threw his fist, only for Kozerah to catch it and flip him over his shoulder, slamming him against the ground. The red leviathan’s horns glowed, and purple flame rained down from his mouth on the fish-lizard’s prone form.
Barracudasaurus writhed as the heat blasted him. He flipped onto his stomach and tried to crawl away, only to find himself flying as Kozerah kicked him like a football. The next thing Barracudasaurus knew, he was upright once more, his arms caught between the blades of CIGOR’s massive hands. The scissors cut in deep, slicing through skin and muscle to scrape against bone, and the points of the cyborg’s armored torso dug into the fish-lizard’s back.
Kozerah charged and spun, slamming the spiked club and the end of his tail against Barracudasaurus’ kneecaps. He backed up, then charged again, lowering his head to drive his horns into his target’s gut. They pierced deep beneath the ribcage.
CIGOR released his grip, and Kozerah took hold of his foe. With a burst of strength surging through his mighty muscles, he lifted Barracudasaurus above his head, and brought him down hard onto his extended knee, breaking the fish-lizard’s spine with a sickeningly loud crack.
Barracudasaurus went limp.
Kozerah lifted him again, and threw him with all of his might back into Tokyo Bay, where he landed with such a tremendous splash that it flooded the streets with sea water.
Richard looked out at the bay.
Barracudasaurus was floating face down in the water, completely motionless. The gills on his neck, half-submerged in the water, were still moving, which meant he must still be alive, but the movement was slow and labored, as if every breath was a struggle.
The few sea monsters that had survived the arrival of Kozerah and Armadagger gathered around their fallen master, and in a manner shockingly reminiscent of pallbearers, they gently guided his body out to sea, leaving a swirling trail of blood behind them. Eventually, they vanished beneath the waves.
It was a solemn departure, and Richard was almost moved to tears by it. Though these creatures had wanted to destroy humanity, he now saw that they were, in a strange way, very similar to humans, at least in some regards.
His empathy for these would-be destroyers of his race was instantly forgotten as he saw Kozerah, Andrea, CIGOR, and Armadagger gather on the shore, also watching the procession.
Together, they roared triumphantly at the rising sun.
Their victory chorus shook the Akira, as well as every building in Tokyo which still stood.
Andrea was the first to depart, taking to the air with a single flap of her wings. She and her murmuration of Pterosaurs flew towards the sunrise, back to the tranquility of their nests in the mountains of South America.
Armadagger was the next to leave. He dug his claws into the ground and vanished deep into the Earth in a thick cloud of dust and rubble.
CIGOR flew back towards the Akira, shrinking as he did. To Richard, the combined effect of the cyborg’s return with his size change made it seem like he had not shrunk at all. He disappeared from view beneath the observation deck.
Richard’s eyes drifted back to Kozerah.
He was surprised to see the red leviathan was staring right back at him.
No, that was impossible. Kozerah could not possibly see him here on the observation deck. Perhaps he had simply watched CIGOR’s departure. Maybe he was wondering if the Akira presented some sort
of different threat to be neutralized before he left.
Yet, for all his rationalizing, Richard still felt like Kozerah was looking specifically at him. It made no sense, he would later admit, but very little about his life had made sense these past few days.
Whether Kozerah was looking at him or not, the behemoth eventually decided to leave. Without so much as a grunt, he waded into the water and eventually slipped beneath the surface without a ripple.
Elsewhere on the Akira, there was likely cheering and celebration at the victory, but on the observation deck, there was only Richard’s sigh of relief.
He fell back against the wall and sank as the tension left his body, replaced with a sense of peace and calm.
At last, it was over.
CHAPTER 22
On the journey back to America, Richard kept his eye on the news by way of the Akira’s various media outlets. Every TV network, every radio station, every newspaper was abuzz with reports and speculation about the cataclysmic events that had rocked the Pacific Rim over the past few days, and a man named Colonel George F. Stingray was in nearly every report. Whenever Richard saw him on TV, sweat poured from the Colonel’s body worse than Richard Nixon had during his debate with Kennedy as he was pelted with questions about the robot Panzer Indigo. In every appearance, he sounded as if he wanted to say something that would shift the public’s focus elsewhere, but he was clearly bloodying his tongue. To Richard’s trained reporter’s eye, it seemed as though this Stingray was a scapegoat, someone upon which all of the blame for a public relations disaster was being heaped. No doubt there were other men out there who should have been sharing the scorn with him, but from the look of things, they were safely hidden away while this Colonel Stingray had been left bleeding in the water to attract the sharks.
Could this man and the secret he was keeping have any connection to that mysterious lake Nancy had accidentally mentioned that one time? Richard suspected as much, but he knew by now that he would have to wait for another day to find out for certain.
Operation Red Dragon: The Daikaiju Wars: Part One Page 17