KAIJU FOR DUMMIES
Kaiju Wars Offline
Book 2
By N. Knight
Copyright © 2018 D20Kaiju LLC.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
PLAGUE DOCTOR ILLUSTRATION
Acknowledgements
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Thank you to my cousin, who discussed cars and answered my dumb questions about them.
Thank you to my friend Mr. de Luna, who discussed my worldbuilding at length and helped me work out the math taking place behind the scenes for the videogame elements.
Thank you to my friend Professor Ridings, for reviewing my material despite a heavy workload and discussing story and character development.
And, of course, a thank you to my amazing, loving, and supportive bride.
You all made this book not only possible, but better.
Chapter One
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Keeping busy, I’ve found, is the best way to stave off addiction.
I am an addict. I haven’t given in to the addiction in over a month now but it’s still there. Mom’s condition hasn’t made it any easier to resist giving in. She’s got ALS, which, for those of you who don’t know, sucks. She’s dying, her entire body steadily refusing to obey her brain’s commands as scar tissue develops along her spinal cord. It’s working pretty fast. I got her setup on a nice quiet piece of property in Kerrville, Texas. Nice town. Lots of hills. Boring as fuck all and not nearly as much business as I’d hoped.
I’m a mechanic. Technically I’m also an ex-con. I’m willing to work. Eager to actually. I need it because even splitting the medical bills with Dad, my money’s running out. More importantly than that though, I need the work to keep me busy. To keep away the temptation.
Most people with an addiction don’t have to confront their issue every time their hand goes near a screen. Most people with an addiction only hurt themselves or their immediate family or those nearby them when they give in. Some addicts can even manage themselves pretty well and have a normal, regulated life.
If I give in to my addiction people will die. Those people may or may not be human beings, but there will be death and destruction. On our world or another.
A few months ago, I was let out of prison by a mysterious group calling themselves the Game Masters. I thought I was helping to beta test some new, next generation video game that would double as an anger management device. My issues with my tempter may have been a consideration in my candidacy. And my initial lockup.
Turns out the game was real. I was actually turning into a giant monster, a kaiju, and terrorizing some alien planet. Maybe it’s in another galaxy or another dimension, I don’t know. Not entirely sure I care, either. The game was fun and it worked. I’d never been so clear-headed in all my life. I never would have guessed that it wasn’t a game at all if the aliens hadn’t sent a kaiju of their own back to our world.
I killed that big bastard by bringing my own kaiju to our world and swore I’d never touch the game again. Not breaking my promise has been very, very hard.
Something taps on the semi-crumpled hood of the car whose engine I’m working on, making me jerk upright and bang my head. Several choice words escape my mouth before I remember there’s someone nearby who’s not supposed to be hearing that kind of language and bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself. The mistake and additional pain make me madder. Mad enough that for a moment I see red as I move myself in a circle in the grass.
There’s a woman’s voice talking to me. Apologizing.
I bring myself to a stop and take a deep breath. I’m a fan of deep breaths. Without the game, they’re my main line of defense against my own temper.
My eyes fix on the woman who startled me. She’s tall and thin, African American with very dark skin and striking eyes. She’s a looker in her sun dress and holding a glass of what’s probably lemonade. I wish it was something stronger. She’s only in her early twenties, a few years older than me. A simple wedding ring glitters on her hand.
Her son, a curly, blonde haired boy with her dark eyes, is staring at me from behind her, doubled over on the driveway with his hand on a plastic dump truck. He looks like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry looking at me. The woman’s less reserved and laughs openly.
My wounded pride prickles and I bite the inside of my cheek harder to keep from saying, or worse, doing something stupid.
“I shouldn’t laugh,” the woman says. “I’ve just never seen someone spin like that. It was like, straight out of the Three Stooges, you know?”
I don’t actually. I’ve never seen an episode or the remake movies. Frankly, I’ve got better shit to do. But I get the reference and make myself smile. The smile hurts worse than my throbbing head.
The woman, whose name is Aida Dalton, makes an apologetic face and holds up the maybe-lemonade. “Peace offering.”
I snort out a laugh as I clean my hands before accepting the beverage and take a long drink. Replacing a radiator isn’t hard, just messy, and I managed to get fluids all over me. The beverage is refreshing and thank God she’s spiked it. I let out an appreciative sound somewhere in my throat that rises to the back of my mouth. It’s been too long since I’ve had a drink this good.
“Thank you,” I say after I’ve finished half the glass in two huge gulps. Huge for me now. Memories flash through my head of having much larger, much more powerful jaws. A gulp then…I shake my head, and the pain this causes from my recent bump clears out the memories. Mom would have called it a blessing in disguise.
“Least I can do, you coming all the way out here,” Aida says.
“Out here” is Huntsville, Texas, a good few hours from where I’m set up with Mom in Kerrville. It’s famous for three things. Being the hometown of Sam Houston, Sam Houston State University, and Texas State Penitentiary.
It’s the last of these that has Aida and her son, Samuel Jr., or just Junior, living out here in an apartment complex only a few miles from the University and occupied mostly by college students. Her husband, Samuel Sr., is several years older than me and looked out for me when we were locked up in youth detention centers together. We haven’t seen each other in years but he gave his wife my number when Aida, who’s used to
urban living, accidentally hit a deer.
She has to commute down to Conroe for work and needs her car. Also, they’re tight on money. They haven’t said anything, I just know the signs. Mom used to travel with me around the US in her RV, travel writing and blogging and sometimes had to take odd jobs when we had slow months.
“How much longer you think it’ll be?” Aida asks.
I shrug. “Pretty much wrapped. Just need to give everything a quick look over.”
She blinks in surprise. “You’ve only been out here about an hour and a half.” She shakes her head. “I thought for sure I’d wrecked the radiator.”
“Yeah, it was cracked pretty good,” I tell her.
She furrows her brow in consternation. “You repaired it already?”
I shake my head. “I figured it was the radiator when you called and had the auto part store hold one for me. Picked it up on my way over. Figure we don’t need it, I just return it and grab what we need. Saved us a trip.”
Aida’s eyes go wide. “You just picked up a radiator?”
It amazes me the things some people get amazed by. Ordering and picking up car parts or building a website seem to strike some people the equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat or sawing a woman in half. It’s magic! Then again, I guess there’s plenty of shit in the world I don’t really get. A lot more of that lately, since the kaiju attacks, though everyone else seems to have an opinion, ranging from the end times being at hand to government conspiracy to aliens. The last one is actually pretty close to the mark.
I shrug. “Looks like I was right.” I step back and look the old Toyota Corolla over. The bumper’s gone, but so long as she doesn’t hit any more deer that shouldn’t be an issue. The car will get her to work and Junior to school.
“How much do I owe you?” she asks.
I give her the cost of the radiator then tack on thirty dollars. I figure twenty dollars an hour is a fair rate. Also, Samuel’s a friend.
Aida’s eyebrows raise in surprise, then she scowls at me. It’s a fierce expression that’s really damn sexy. I don’t need to be reminded she’s married, I’m just acknowledging that Samuel’s got good taste in women. In fact, she puts me in mind of a certain fiery Latina I met a few months ago. The memory sends a pang through my chest like a struck frying pan.
“You drove what, four or five hours to get here?” she asks.
“About that,” I acknowledge.
Her brow furrows again as she begins doing some mental math. This woman’s eyebrows are really damn expressive. She could probably have an entire conversation with someone using nothing but her eyebrows. Now there’s a skit I’d pay to see. Screw you, Larry, Curly, and Moe, Aida’s got the stage.
“Okay, we’re adding another forty to that to pay for gas and you’re taking dinner home with you,” she says.
I start to protest but she holds up a hand and snarls at me. This woman’s got some pride. Then I realize she’s not the one snarling as the noise comes louder, vibrating through my entire skeleton and jiggling my internal organs.
The ground shakes. Shudders. And a ROAR tears across the sky.
Aida’s eyes are wide and staring at a fixed point above my head.
I spin around and nearly shit myself.
There’s a dark red kaiju looming over the trees with a head like a rhinoceros and arms like praying a praying mantis. I’m shocked. As much by the monster’s sudden appearance as by the fact that I recognize him.
His name is Megaptera and we played Kaiju Wars Online together.
Chapter Two
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It’s hard to get a good look at Megaptera or really grasp his sense of scale. For one thing, Huntsville is covered in trees, cutting off line of sight. For another, my brain is struggling to process what I’m seeing. Something that big shouldn’t exist. Never mind that I’ve seen bigger kaiju before, hell, I barely got out of my dorm before it was smashed by one several times larger than Megaptera a few months back. My roommate wasn’t so lucky.
I can say for sure that Megaptera is bigger than the last time I saw him. We’d been charging down a massive piece of alien tech that had allowed the aliens we’d been attacking to send kaiju to our world. He’d still thought it was a game then. Apparently, he knows better now.
And yet, as I blink at him trying to clear my eyes, I realize that the odd bit of light I’m seeing hovering over his horned head is Megaptera’s name, an HP bar, and a rage meter. Videogame icons in my own real-world vision. Both bars are full. In fact, the rage meter is practically ready to explode. This is new. I’d been able to see that information while playing the game, but I’m not looking at a screen now.
I glance down at the small scar at the base of my right palm, where the Game Master’s had implanted a microchip that was supposed to let me play their game on any device. It’s doing more than that now. Or, more worrisome, it was always doing more. Who knows what the little machine’s been up to inside of me since it was put there.
Of course, it’s not nearly as worrisome as my current problem. Not only is Megaptera here, the status of his rage meter tells me he’s seriously pissed. It took me a little to figure out, but I finally cracked some of the code. The game or chip or whatever, actually converts a player’s anger into fuel for their kaiju’s special attacks or abilities. Judging by Megaptera’s rage meter, whatever made him so angry is seriously screwed.
I’m proven right an instant later as the kaiju shifts, turning to face away from us, each step shaking the earth. Despite his mantis arms and rhino head, the creature that Megaptera most resembles is a tyrannosaurus rex, with a crouched over posture, thick reptilian legs, and a heavy tail to serve as a counterweight to the rest of his powerful body.
It’s not his body that has me worried though. The rage meter below his name crackles and begins dropping at the same time Megaptera’s eyes begin glowing and freaking laser beams shoot out of his freaking eyes. It’s a far cry from the most unique special attack I’ve seen a kaiju use but I can’t argue with the beams’ effectiveness. Something in the distance is on fire, filling the air with smoke. The scream of sirens follows.
This is accompanied by screams from Aida. It’s only been seconds since Megaptera’s sudden arrival but it feels like hours. She’s running to her son, grabbing Junior up in her arms, and hauling him back towards their apartment. The reaction makes sense. Grab your kid and take cover. Only problem is that there’s nothing in Huntsville that can provide any real cover. If Megaptera turns around he’ll tear through that apartment like it’s made of Legos.
“No!” I go after her, grabbing her arm to stop her. She whirls on me, a mother tiger caught by the tail, ready to rake my face off. I point at her car. “Get out of here!”
There is only one safe place to be when a kaiju attacks: wherever the kaiju isn’t.
This town is fucked. There’s no two ways around it. The only way to guarantee survival is to get as far away as fast as possible. It’s only a matter of moments before the roads are clogged with panicking people. “We need to get out of here now.”
Aida starts for the car, then comes up short. “My husband!”
Fuck me sideways with a clown car. “Go! I’ll make sure Samuel’s okay!”
I nearly shove her into her car. She hesitates for a moment to stare at me.
“Go!”
“Where?” She demands.
Good point. I’d forgotten that Aida’s not a native Texan and none of her family live in the state. “My place. Head to Kerrville.”
Then we both take off and I’m left wondering if I’ve suffered some kind of brain damage because while Aida hits the road and drives off in the most intelligent direction, away from the kaiju, I go running after Megaptera.
I honestly can’t say what it is that I’m hoping to accomplish. There’s not a damn thing I can do aside from getting stepped on if I catch up t
o him. But all the same, I’ve got to get to him.
Here’s something a lot of people don’t get about kaiju. They’re fast. You see some CGI monster or a guy in a rubber suit stomping around a city and you don’t really get a sense of how much ground is covered by each of those massive steps. Running after Megaptera feels like chasing down an earthquake, if that earthquake could move like an Olympic sprinter.
Every damn step Megaptera takes covers at least a hundred feet, maybe more. Each time his foot comes down it shakes the town with enough force that I can hear the sound of glass breaking all around me as windows give in. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the less cared for buildings come down just from the kaiju’s weight striking the ground over and over again.
I quickly lose sight of Megaptera as he pulls away and my view is blocked by trees. I follow the shaking, the sirens, and the smoke. The streets quickly fill with cars, students, and locals all trying to get away from the monster that’s appeared in their midst.
Pretty soon my breathing hurts. Cardio isn’t something that’s encouraged in prison and most of my time since I got out has been spent working on cars, helping with Mom, or playing Kaiju Wars. Chasing after Megaptera has me reconsidering my priorities. Or maybe this is my subconscious’ way of trying to assert some sense of self-preservation because this is just about the dumbest thing I have ever done.
I’m fighting the crowd as I run down Sam Houston Avenue because I’m the only person idiotic enough to actually try and chase down a kaiju. I don’t even know what I’m going to do when I catch up. If I catch up. Even if Megaptera notices me, unlikely given our size difference, he’s got no way to recognize me. He knows my kaiju from the game, maybe my voice, but he’s never seen my face. He doesn’t know the first thing about me.
And yet as I find myself sprinting past the ruins of the university and the Sam Houston museum, I’m not filled with panic or fear. I should be. A part of me knows this. Another part of me doesn’t give a damn. It’s too busy throwing a party. Because as much pain as my ribs are in right now from my several mile-long sprint, this is the most exhilaration I’ve experienced since becoming my kaiju, Taisaur, in Dallas and throwing down with Titanocobra.
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