Portals of Infinity: Kaiju

by John Van Stry

  "Two years? You only fought in Marland for one!" Loomis laughed.

  "The Mowoks are my people as well, Loomis. They're not part of the Hiland kingdom, but they are devout followers of Feliogustus, and I spend time among them as well."

  "Eh, those savages?" Loomis laughed.

  I was about to open my mouth and make a response when I felt a hand on my arm. Turning I noticed Evean, who shook her head. So sighing I laid back down. It was getting late, so smiling at Evean; I drug her over to my bed, curled up with her, and closed my eyes and went to sleep.

  Fourteen

  2nd World

  Entry Station

  "Unfortunately, we do not have any records on your man," Commander Yuudai said.

  It was noon of the following day and Evean, Jane, Loomis, and I were sitting at the table in his office. Evean had felt that only the principles needed to be there, the ones whose people were facing the most immediately threat.

  "What about the Okishijen Desootoria? Or gojira? Have they heard anything about that at all?" Evean asked.

  Yuudai shook his head, "No, we haven't been able to turn up any references to those either. This morning, my superiors sent out a call to all the libraries in this country, as well as those of our allies, to see if anyone had any works, or knowledge of any works, containing those references."

  "Now what?" Loomis said and looked at Evean. "We've hit a dead end! Maybe he didn't come this way after all!"

  "No," Evean said, "This feels like the right place."

  "I say we go back and look for another portal from the tower world!"

  "Go right ahead, Loomis," I growled. "No one is stopping you."

  Loomis froze and then turned and glared at me. I was still in my champion form, and he was not. Of course my champion form was still a good deal larger than his anyway. He didn't say anything, but I did notice Evean's hand on his arm, squeezing it.

  "Do you have a list of the descriptions of all of the portals in your area? What there is on the other side of them?"

  "Of course," Commander Yuudai said.

  "If it would not be too much trouble, would you mind if Will and I looked through them?"

  "No, of course not! We are committed to doing everything we can to help you with this."

  "Why just you and William?" Loomis grumbled.

  "Because we're the only ones here who have seen the works of Mr. Tsuburaya," Evean said to him, and then turned back to Commander Yuudai. "When can we start?"

  "I'll have a couple of terminals set up for you within the hour. It will take a while for you to go through them all, there are about three hundred of them on the islands, and another fifty or so within a hundred miles of our shores."

  "That sounds more than acceptable, thank you very much, Commander. Believe me; your cooperation is being appreciated."

  "Well, I did mention to my bosses that little tidbit about being owed a favor by a god, and well, they're really turning themselves inside out to earn it. Apparently there is something they'd like help with, though they haven't told me what it is."

  Evean stood up, and the rest of us did as well.

  "We'll come back in an hour, Commander. Again, thank you."

  We all followed her out the door.

  "You're not that tough," Loomis grumbled at me.

  "Loomis," Evean said sweetly, "we do not argue in front of the mortals, okay?" She turned to me next, "Same goes for you, William, understand?"

  "Yes, Evean," I said, and tried not to grumble. While Loomis had started it, she was right that I shouldn't have responded.

  "So, think you'll find anything in those records?" Jane asked.

  I shrugged, "Maybe. His movies had some iconic stuff in them, but it's been forty years, so who knows?"

  "Well, we will just have to see now, won't we?" Evean said and taking Loomis's arm in hers she strolled off towards the barracks.

  "I think I can tell what she's up to!" Jane laughed.

  "Is it me, or is Loomis turning into a bit of an ass?"

  "A lot of people in his country's army were killed, a lot more will probably die the next time this gojira thing attacks. He's just worried about his people. If it were Hilanders dying, you'd probably be breathing fire."

  I sighed and shook my head, "Maybe, I don't know. I just don't want to undercut Evean in front of others. She's supposed to be in charge, and that means we bitch in private."

  "Been learning about being an officer I take it?" Jane chuckled.

  "I do try to pay attention. Besides the last thing I want is Evean pissed at me."

  "Still afraid of her?"

  "I just know her well enough to know that she will get even with me, if I piss her off."

  "Oh, I think that's true of everyone here, Will!" Jane laughed.

  "No, she'll go out of her way, and make sure it hurts, a lot. Like I've said before, I know where she comes from; I know what she grew up with. She'll make you suffer for it.

  "So, I'm not going to get on her bad side, unless it's really important."

  "Plus you like her," Jane teased.

  "I like you too, you know," I teased back.

  "What do you say we find someplace quiet to go kill an hour?" Jane said with a wink.

  "I'd love to!"

  It was four or five in the morning. The files that they had on each of the portals were huge, some had pictures, and all had drawings. There were details on the people, the culture, maps, names of cities, names of famous people, religions.

  Some of the files were more detailed than others, it would take anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour to go through a file, and on the bigger ones I really just skimmed. I'd started around one in the afternoon, Evean had shown up about an hour later, and gave a mumbled 'sorry' as she went by for some reason.

  At this point I'd gone through thirty-three files, and had two hundred and twenty some-odd to go. I was working from the ones farthest away, to those closest. Evean was working from the closest to the farthest. I figured as she was more likely to have seen any relevant movies than I was, it was better if she looked over the most likely candidates.

  "Will?"

  I looked up at Evean, she was looking at me.

  "Yes?"

  "Come here and look at this."

  "Sure," I said and getting up I went over to her terminal. She got up and I took her seat.

  "What am I looking for?" I asked.

  "Just listen to the file and examine the pictures."

  "Okay," I yawned.

  I put the headset up by my ear had the computer read the descriptive text to me; it was a high tech world, slightly higher tech than here, about forty years ahead of Japan if I was understanding what I was reading.

  Evean started to massage my neck and shoulders, "Oh, that feels nice," I purred.

  "Not mad at me?" She asked.

  "Why would I be mad at you?" I said and clicked to open the folder with the pictures on it.

  "Well, I did run off with Loomis, and I haven't been with you in a few days."

  "Evean, I do not own you, I know I'm not the only man in your life, don't worry about it, you're my friend, when we can, we can. When we can't, I'm not upset if you're with someone else."

  "And here I was hoping you'd be more possessive," She mock sighed.

  "I'm married, Evean, you know that."

  "I thought that was just because she was the queen, and she was hot."

  I swore to myself, I wasn't sure I wanted Evean to know the truth about my wives or my family yet, maybe ever.

  "Did I hit a nerve or something?" She asked surprised.

  I looked at the pictures while I tried to compose a reply and then just froze.

  "Well? Did I?" She prompted again.

  "Ultraman?" I said and looked back at her, and then back at the picture. Everyone was dressed in fairly futuristic styles, with a lot of silver in their fashions. The pictures were from about thirty years ago, the people had strange looking headsets, but the style was so similar I couldn'
t mistake it. The big give away though were the people in the orange and white uniforms, patterned to look almost like a matador's jacket, wearing ties and helmets.

  Evean gave my shoulders a squeeze and leaned around to kiss me.

  "I thought so too! This has got to be it! The next place he went to!"

  "Where is it located?" I asked clicking back to the local map.

  "Fifty miles from here, almost in the same location as the portal to Koshien stadium back in the tower world. Notice how the geography in this world, the last one, and Japan are all fairly similar?"

  I nodded, "I wonder if he was trying to go back home?"

  Evean came around and sat in my lap, shifting into her champion form. "Possibly, or maybe he thought it would lead to a more similar world," She kissed me then, and it was like the first time we'd kissed, I could tell she was hitting me with her pheromones again.

  "Hmm?" I asked and looked at her.

  "It occurs to me that we've never had sex in our champion forms, and if anyone here has earned it, it's you, Will," She purred.

  I looked around the office, it was deserted, the workers in the building had gone home to bed hours ago.

  "Don't worry, it's empty, I checked."

  I smiled back at her, I know I could have used a cantrip to deal with the effects of the pheromones, but right now, a little celebration sounded like a good idea.

  "You know, you're my only friend, William," She said and kissed me again.

  "Then I guess I need to work at becoming a really good one," I purred and kissed her back, as I started helping her shed her jumpsuit.

  Definitely time for a little celebration.

  "So, like it?" Evean was curled up against me, in the nook of my arm.

  "I'd think that was obvious," I purred and kissed the top of her head.

  "Better than back in Japan?"

  "The pheromone thing is interesting, and you do look good with a furry tail," I teased.

  Evean frowned, "So you're saying it wasn't any better?"

  I laughed, "Your champion body is more limber, stronger, and has a lot more stamina, and I definitely enjoyed using and abusing it. But, Evean, I'm making love to Evean, not Evean's body. You shouldn't sell your original body short; I could barely walk when you were done with me."

  She got soft and cuddly again, "I wish I had met you years ago."

  "You did," I chuckled.

  "I meant years before that!" She laughed.

  "Back then I was a lot more of a ass than I am now," I told her, "It's better that you meet me now, when I've had a chance to grow up."

  I felt a sharp pain just then, and winced, it seemed to come from the spot where Fel usually made his presence known.

  "You feel that?" Evean asked.

  "Roden just yank your chain too?" I said untangling and getting up.

  "Yeah, we better get back to the others, something's up."

  Grabbing our things we ran back to the barracks, we got about halfway there and Jane came running out of the building.

  "There you are!" She said, "I have to go! I have to go now!"

  "What? What's going on?" I asked her.

  "Marland is under attack; the monster came up the river this morning, and is attacking the city!"

  I swore, "Open up a portal to the temple, we'll both go."

  "No," Evean said and grabbed my arm, "You're needed here, you can't go."

  "But it's my home!" I growled.

  "She's right!" Jane said, "Fordessa said Fel doesn't want you coming back without the weapon."

  "But you need help!" I said, "One champion isn't going to stop that thing!"

  "I'll go!" Shin said. I noticed he was standing rather close to Jane, and I could smell his scent on her. I wondered briefly if they had a thing going, but whether they did or not, he was a more experienced champion than she was. Hopefully that would help.

  "Thanks, Shin!" I said. "Go!"

  Jane looked over at Shin and smiled at him, and then taking his hand, she concentrated a moment. As soon as the portal opened, she jumped through, collapsing the portal as soon as they were through it.

  "What the hell was that?"

  I turned and saw the Captain I'd met when we'd first gotten here, what? Two days ago?

  "Champions can open portals to their homes," I told them.

  "So why'd they leave?"

  "Monster problems," Evean said turning and looking at him. "Go wake Commander Yuudai, we know where we're going next, and we'd like to be on our way as soon as possible."

  "Yes, Ma'am!" he said and trotted off.

  "Let's get our gear and tell the others," I said. "Then I'd like to take another look at that file before we go."

  "Yes, we should," Evean agreed.

  Several hours later we were on our way, the seven of us split up into two vehicles as we were driven to the next portal. The files called it the 'Technical Men' portal, because the society there had been a much higher tech level back then, to Evean and I however, it was the 'Ultraman' portal.

  Looking around as we drove I was rather impressed with the quality of the roads and the new state of the construction. I was in the second car with Teshes, Suzona, and Joseph. Evean was in the first car with Loomis, Gregory, and Commander Yuudai who was accompanying us, to make sure there weren't any last minute issues. As well as to keep an eye on us too, I was sure. We were all in our local forms, but the driver knew who and what we were, and I think was a little in awe of us.

  "Why is everything so new?" Joseph said looking around. "I thought your country was a fairly old one."

  "Oh, we had a war here fifty years ago," The driver said, "it took us a while to rebuild, however it allowed us to make so many improvements to our towns and cities."

  "Well, I guess that's a positive way to look at it," Joseph said looking rather thoughtful.

  "You had a war here too?" I asked surprised.

  "Many of the lands connected to the 'War World' experienced war during the same years," the driver said to us. "The current theory is that the rulers of that world spent many years exporting spies and other infiltrators to the neighboring worlds and eventually incited hostilities in many places."

  "Really?" I asked surprised.

  He shrugged, "It is just a theory. Some think the War World may have been coerced along with the rest of us, others claim that it was such a monumental event that all of the neighboring worlds experienced some version of it, that it was inevitable."

  The driver shrugged again, "Nobody really knows for sure, but that was when the government decided to keep watch on the portals, and to take measures for the ones leading to the one place they discovered was having a negative effect on our world."

  "What? They caught them doing something?"

  "A lot of the tech that they're using to build their super weapon came from our world. We tried to be friends with them at first, we were much farther along in our rebuilding than they were, and we figured that like us, they'd seen the error of their past and were turning their efforts to the future."

  "That must have been a rude awakening," Joseph sighed.

  "Yes, and some of their people were quite violent when we stopped helping them."

  "So, who won your war?" I asked, curious.

  "Nobody. There was a revolution here, and the people who had been promoting the war were thrown out of power. The new government was able to negotiate a peace, which considering the damage all sides had done to each other by that time, was happily accepted by all."

  I wondered a little about their theories, maybe I'd ask Fel about it later, but the thoughts that were going through my mind the most were about home. Thinking about the destruction that had been dealt with here made me wonder what was the monster doing to Marland? How many people would die? How many homes would be destroyed?

  I sighed and gave my head a small shake. There were two more cities up the river from Marland, if the monster decided to go that way. The first was some small city-state that had been in Barassa's
sphere of influence, but due to trade and a strong defense had managed to stay somewhat neutral and out of all the political maneuvering for the last decade.

  The second was Rivervail, the former Mulander city.

  I just hoped this thing wouldn't, or couldn't, go up the river past the falls that Rivervail sat on. That would bring it a lot closer to Hiland city, Rachel, Fel, and my family, than I was comfortable with.

  "Something wrong, Will?" Teshes asked.

  "Just worrying about my home," I said. "I hope Jane and Shin are able to find some way to drive that monster off before it does too much damage."

  "All the more reason for us to be quick about this," Teshes said.

  "Any idea of how many more places we have to search?" Suzona asked.

  I shook my head, "Evean and I both recognized the outfits in the files, so we're positive that this is the next step. But we don't know if it's the last one."

  "Well, we have five more days before the next attack; hopefully we will find this weapon by then."

  "Assuming that the monster sticks to its five day cycle," I pointed out.

  "Assumptions and prayers are all we have to go on these days," Teshes said and smiled at me a little wanly. "So, we might as well make the most of them and do our jobs."

  I nodded and went and looked back out the window as Joseph started to discuss other things about this world with the driver. I didn't pay much attention to it anymore however, I just wondered if the next world wasn't the right one, then what?

  The portal was in the middle of a field, surrounded by a twelve-foot high chain link fence. There were a few guards, but nothing like the set up at the other portal we'd come through.

  "Do you get a lot of people coming through here?" Evean asked Commander Yuudai as we got ready to go through.

  "Not really. There are a few random travelers and a few regular traders, but it seems that most travelers don't appreciate showing up in places where they will be recorded and tracked."

  "Does the government on the other side know about the portals?" Joseph asked.

  Commander Yuudai shook his head, "Not as far as we know. Our researchers believe that the genes that allow people to travel through these portals are much less common on the other side. The people who come through here have all been experienced travelers, and not natives of that world."