Godzilla 2000: New Era, PART 22 - FINALE Part 1

PART 21
Proofed by Lance-Omikron
Story ideas by Faith-Wolff and CrystalMaster7
Gabriel Hopkins by Dr1ft3r0I a.k.a C0yot3721
Dr. Joanne Johnson by Corona Blaze
Hina and illustrations by FallenAngel5414
Ami by EvoWizard
Additional illustrations by LordShrekzilla and Zeroviks

Because FimFic has a limit on how big you can make a blog post...

===========

Mitsuo Katagiri was still shaking. They’d struggled for the lever, Mitsuo having resigned that the sacrifice of his life’s work and a small few unfortunate souls were worth securing the future for billions. His resolve to do just that, set as it had been ever since he’d left Tokyo ahead of the pack, was steeled by Shinoda himself offering his support. To Mitsuo, it had been nothing short of a godsend, a final push to action after a combination of dread, shock from his own injuries, and an existential crisis had delayed him throwing the switch to destroy CCI’s tower.

Only for that gift to be a cruel twist, that the very friend he needed to push him to do what had to be done would be informed of that horrid truth at the last minute.

Mitsuo had watched Yuji Shinoda fall even as he threw the switch for the explosives, eyes not on the death of his life’s work and purpose, but on what he feared was the death of his once best friend. Staring at the still form of the biologist at his feet, the gun in his hand, CCI’s director heaved in a cracking breath as he tried to comprehend what he had just done.

-’You only meant to startle him with the shot, you’d been trying to miss.’-

Some fragment of his mind whispered, ineffective.

-’It was an accident, you only grazed his leg.’-

Another piece of his fraying psyche pleaded with logic.

-’You’d never try and actually do it, it was his fault. He tackled you, it was a struggle-’

The gun’s metal reflected a distant glimmer of the explosives far away, CCI tower’s death cries.

“No,” Mitsuo Katagiri whispered with a deep scowl aimed only at the face he could see, also reflected in the metallic sheen of the pistol, as a drop of the dark red ichors leaking from his busted nose dripped onto the weapon.

Literal blood on his hands to go with the metaphorical. All because of this fear. The same fear that had driven himself from his sole remaining friend. The fear which propelled the destiny of CCI and, by his own resolution, his nation as well. That which pushed his own child away, whilst also slapping a shock collar on a different innocent child. This, all of this, the Millennian being enabled, G-Force crippled, CCI destroyed, and all of these old wounds. His fear was its greatest architect.

As much as either of them wanted to work together again and be friends, harsh fate seemed poised to drive them apart with one monster after the next. Be it a walking hurricane with a roar of thunder, or the cracking bolt of a pistol held by a monster possessing the shape of a man.

Mitsuo’s hand shook as he held the very latest incarnation of his own worst fears. His fingers clenched the pistol so tightly, his skin split in a few spots. No more excuses. No more paranoia. Something deep within him broke, like a shackle snapped, as he screamed a roar and threw the gun away.

Ignoring his own wounds, bleeding and old, Mitsuo Katagiri helped to heft Yuji Shinoda off the ground to get him somewhere with the proper equipment.

That was when a low voice, distorted and inhuman in every syllable, rattled the air across Kyoto

========

Heaven and earth quaked from General Gordon’s perspective, everything blurring from his eyes and brain being rattled as he clung to his downed missile launcher to avoid falling off. His eyes cast upwards and even in the darkness of the night and blackout, a towering shadow cloaked the works of mankind as it rushed past and stepped over him. Hundreds of glassy windows still intact shattered from the jostling strain, raining down and forcing Gordon to hide inside the cab of his destroyed launcher.

Through the falling glass cascading onto the cab and the fractured span of the windshield itself, the General’s entire field of vision was occupied by Godzilla’s enormity smashing into Orga’s headfirst in a tackle; a tsunami smashing into a mountain. The impact force struck the abomination so hard the collision caused the alien’s legs to cave into the ground and rupture the streets. Gordon glimpsed the flash of sparks and the outline of talons tearing through a hide tougher than steel, Godzilla slashing ribbons of tissue from the flayed hybrid's chest that splashed against the buildings and roads.

The abomination wheezed and shrieked from its sole remaining head, a grotesque parody of Godzilla’s own, and lashed out with its oversized arm.

“Get clear! Stick to the roads, get clear!” Pentecost roared whilst harrowing the flight team of a downed helicopter he’d run to assist.

Carrying the unconscious pilot on his back, he and the others scrambled to get away from the buildings, for what had once been the dwellings of human life now meant death in a clash of titans. The collision of Godzilla’s dorsal spines with the structure they’d landed on could be favorably compared to a dozen pointed sledgehammers impacting matchwood. Brick, concrete, and glass spattered the ground. A section of rebar impaled the roadway not far from him, the metal rod rattling back and forth like it was a dart chucked into a board.

He didn’t quite know why he looked up, perhaps to see if he could spot falling debris to dodge or warn others of. But when he did, there was a strange sense of pacificity as he felt his gaze engulfed and swallowed up by that sea of red and gold. Two pupils, barely visible had they not been back-lit by the subtle blue glow within the irises, pointed at his own. Pentecost had seen many kaiju before, even fought the last King of the Monsters by piloting its mechanical double. But even in the case of the latter, the cockpit and view screen was not where the eyes of the magnificent machine were. There never was a sense of actually looking something into the windows of the soul. The typical darkness and smoke about such a monster almost made it seem like it had none.

A brief look aside by the titan spurred him to do the same and notice the building it had been shoved into. The dark mass of Godzilla’s arm was hooked around it, claws digging into the concrete and gripping the support beam. The building had been sagging so much it would have been bound to fall over, had it not been caught.

Pentecost’s eye caught a glimpse of the red and gold gaze, and the second this entire perception took place in, ended.

A roar of thunder rattled the sky as Godzilla turned back around, ripping the top half off the building and creating a small sonic boom as he smashed the hundreds tons of concrete and metal across Orga’s face. The building piece shattered on impact, as did half the bones in the mutant Millennian’s skull.

The gigantic saurian lunged forward as a follow-up and clamped his jaws down on the base of Orga’s disproportionately huge left arm. If the alien hybrid wasn’t screaming before, it was now as it thrashed about to try and dislodge its attacker, who’d also grabbed onto and was holding Orga’s own snapping jaws at bay with one hand shoved into its chin and the other of Godzilla’s hands gripping and wrenching at the bitten arm. Blue lights flickered and intensified across Godzilla’s dorsal spines. It contrasted with the golden radiance of dead light sparking within Orga’s surviving head and the base of where the blown-off face had once been on the shoulder.

The spark ignited like an explosion, a torrent of plasma and kinetic energy exploding out of Orga’s shoulder cavity with a smaller stream ripping from its maw. With Godzilla right in front of it, the legendary dragon of Odo Island took the full brunt of the attack; first from the shoulder blast but soon after from the throat beam as well. The dark city was fully illuminated with a thundering crash shaking its foundations. Godzilla barked as he was sent flying back from the kinetic energy, his own beam of energy shooting off into the sky in a wide sweep as his aim was thrown off.

=========

Orga’s energy cannon lit up the chamber within the former CCI headquarters, blocked out only briefly when Godzilla went flying past the viewing window. The dragon was being blasted across the chest and lifted off the ground to crash into a building multiple hundreds of meters away.

“GAAH!” Io Shinoda screamed as she staggered forward and clutched her chest, heaving in breath.

She’d have doubled over entirely had Yuki Ichinose not caught her around the shoulders.

“Io! Io what’s wrong?!” Ichinose yelped over the deafening roar of Orga’s attack flying right past the window; as she felt the little girl slump into her, still shaking and shuddering.

Just above the edge of her hospital gown, Ichinose thought she glimpsed a mass of large, ugly bruises of burst blood vessels marring her collar and going down into her chest. A second glance however, seemed to show there was nothing there and Io looked completely normal. Yuki didn’t have time to harp on this startling notice, as the lighting within the room promptly changed.

Yuki Ichinose’s eyes widened as the radiance cast across her face shifted from the yellow of Orga’s cannon to the blue of Godzilla’s breath. The azure death scythed across the sky, taking the top off of one building before swinging directly at CCI’s tower. The blinding illumination however quickly cut off just before it could strike the structure, even just a glancing hit no doubt being more than enough to obliterate it should that have happened.

Through the smoke and smog from where Godzilla had gotten blown back into a building, she glimpsed a set of blue glows about 100 meters off the ground seemingly looking directly at her. And the still shaking little girl in her arms. Yuki looked down at Io, who was watching transfixed on the eyes as if in a trance.

The beam had cut off on purpose and it was looking directly at them. Space and time, an enormity, seemed to swallow her up like she was pulled through a dark tunnel hanging onto Io. The downpour missiles, flashes of maser fire, and living thunder; a storm of conflict of man and the living, mighty nature at the cliffside when this all started. The tunnel to the van was crumbling and it was as if now she could perceive it all with clarity; either the look in the eyes or perception of Io clearing the fog of fright.

They were about to be crushed, the mountainside and roofing collapsing. The hand of a colossus reached out, and she’d been right when she lined up her hand with the claw marks left behind in the roof. Godzilla had been holding up the roof so they could escape.

The roar of the dragon was enough to spring Yuki Ichinose to awareness, making her aware she too had been in a sort of stupor or trance gazing into them like that. Godzilla had resumed his attack, firing his azure wrath into the air to try and shoot down something airborne that had rammed into him from behind. A flash of silvery metal was briefly visible dodging the beam and swooping around.

“J-Junior he’s,” Io wheezed, tears in her eyes as her chest continued to hurt.

Io had been right this whole time.

The awestruck Yuki clutched the girl to her, eyes cast to the battle outside as Junior wrenched his dorsal spines out of the building he’d been shoved.

“Hey, look at me! Look at me!” Ichinose pleaded as she held Io’s face and wiped a tear with her thumb.

“He’ll win- Junior is going to win and we’re getting through this! We’re-”

“BRACE!” Belvera screamed as she slumped on her sword, the spell shield reactivating.

Even with the symbol for Battra renewing itself, the room still darkened from something moving to block out the windows. Yuki clutched Io to her, letting the girl scream into her shoulder as she caught a glimpse of an enormity of a hand for a split second outside where the light’s reach allowed. The room was coated in a meshwork of lights that resembled something of a silken crafted bubble, as the strongest sorceress on the planet put everything into blocking just one finger by the horrific abomination.

The claw glanced off the shield, but the rattling was so violent it ripped a piece of the surviving foundations and support beams that kept the skeleton of the tower standing. Yuki Ichinose didn’t hear much of anything through the intense shaking the building was subjected to, not even much of Belvera’s possibly expletive-laden, painful screams in a language she didn’t know. But even so, even with the horrific abominable parody of a human head it once sported gone as not to mouth the words anymore; she could still somehow hear and comprehend Orga’s prior shrieking syllables as the building rattled.

Take. The. Girl.

The building’s supports snapped and the entire structure sagged over, metal screaming as pillars bent and concrete exploded from strain. Orga pulled the structure downwards by tearing at the base. It disemboweled CCI tower, wrenching a handful of its innards free and causing the whole structure to suddenly cave inwards upon itself. There was only a brief, pregnant pause before the free fall.

“HANG ON TO SOMETHING!” Belvera screamed in an attempt to forewarn just before the last support holding up the tower gave way.

Vertigo and nausea flooded the senses as the room dropped dozens of meters abruptly. Io held onto the floor with Yuki desperately trying to do the same. Both had little luck, as Orga’s distorted shrieking deafened everyone. It grabbed onto the room.

Magic conducted out of Belvera’s sword, planted into the floor, and across the structure, shocking both Orga’s hand as well as working on the pillars and beams below the jury-rigged panic room. Building material was sutured together, trying to reconstitute supports to stop the room from going into full free fall. Even so, the sudden jolt left the room sagging forward and what was floor became the walls as walls became floor. Yuki saw the satellite phone go flying out of her grasp as she tried to hang onto Io.

Io Shinoda screamed as she was launched at the window, Yuki Ichinose clinging the girl to her and rolling so she’d take the impact. Her shoulder and back smashing against the window with a wet snap from inside her body telling her she’s broken something.

Through the delirium and chaos, Ichinose fought for her senses as another noise came over her ears. Not through the air, but being conducted through her body. A series of crackles and pops she recognized well. The source was before her trembling eyes, a spider web of fracturing glass stretching across the window from where she was laying. The combined impact of herself and Io, along with various loose items like the now shattered remains of the satellite phone, had taxed the strength of the window. The only support she had whilst laying at this near 45’ angle was the fracturing pane, and beyond that was the near pitch black of a multi-dozen meter sheer drop.

“I-Io.. Io we have to-” she whimpered, seeing the fracturing lines in the glass spreading. Half the pane was still intact, but this other half wouldn’t last long with them both on it.

And of the two, Ichinose knew who weighed the most. She tried to nudge Io to safety away from the fractures, towards the edge where the floor met the glass.

The little form quivered and whimpered, the 13 year old utterly terrified. Io extended a shaking hand towards what had been the floor, now a slanted wall. The glass splintered and fractured along the path of her movement, causing her to freeze.

“Garu-Garu, help the girl!” Belvera barked, trying to keep stable and both keep the spell going whilst using her planted sword for support.

The eldest Elias’ mount squawked, having been thrown across the room by the fall and hovered over. Garu-Garu hooked their small claws into Io’s hospital gowl, flapping their little wings as the mechanical dragon tried to give any lift. But considering he was outsized by a housecat, there wasn’t much that could be offered.

“Argk, the- the window isn’t going to hold; you’ll have to take her!” Ichinose shouted up to Belvera.

“I can’t reach her from here!” Belvera huffed as a trickle of blood came from her eye, reddened by the massive magic overuse, looking to the still-frightened girl, “You’ll have to get closer.”

Io Shinoda whimpered, swallowing a breath harshly as she remained still. Even motionless, the glass was still not holding. It was just a matter of when, not if, it would break.

“H-Hey Io… Io look at me,” Yuki Ichinose whispered as she tapped at the girl’s arm. A face with tearful eyes slowly craned around to look at the photographer.

“Eyes on me… Don’t look down… Just… eyes on me,” Yuki whispered slowly, even as tiny pings and ticks of fracturing glass were audible beneath her. She started pushing Io slightly, coaxing her out of her grip to crawl closer to the edge.

Inch by inch the young Shinoda slipped, crying eyes locked on Ichinose’s assuring stare. She started to reach for the wall beyond the glass. Maintaining her grip on her sword, Belvera grit her teeth as she pivoted around to try and get to where she could extend her arm as far as it would go. With her predicament as it was, no amount of spellwork was going to save anyone. Not while using one spell to keep the building from crumbling instantly whilst also maintaining her size-growth charm.

“There you go… There you go,” Ichinose whispered as she pushed herself back slightly whilst trying to hide it from Io. Distribute their weight further apart to avoid concentrating it, make the glass hold up as long as it could.

Io reached the edge of the window and looked up to see Belvera reaching for her whilst Garu-Garu tugged on her collar as best it could. Even with the fairy grown in size, the gap was too long to bridge with an arm span.

“Get up… Get up now,” Ichinose nodded, trying to keep her eyes off the cracking glass. Another fracture surged past her face.

Io Shinoda gulped and drew her knees in to start propping herself up, knowing she’d have to stand to reach Belvera’s hand. But the moment she put her foot on the window, the crackling of fracturing glass reached a new zenith. Pings, pecks, and snaps in constant utterance from her weight being concentrated to a single point.

And that was hardly the only noise. A deep rumbling reverberated through the building’s limp corpse. A footfall and something scraping against the supports outside. Yuki Ichinose cringed and looked down through the fracturing floor beneath her. Through the refracted spider-web of splitting glass, a dim yellow glow slid open and shone through the smoke and dust outside. Its simultaneous brightness and void grew until it swallowed up the entirety of the wall’s span just like it seemed to swallow up her consciousness. A depth born from eons across seas of stars, making her but a mere speck of dust by comparison.

It wasn’t her first time seeing a kaiju up close, but it was overwhelming to behold such magnitude looking into those eyes. Orga’s rattling roar shook the entire building, and Ichinose felt it looking right through her at someone else.

TAKE. THE. GIRL.

It still wanted Io, at any cost.

“Go! Go GO GO!” Ichinose shouted to her charge.

Io Shinoda felt the millisecond pause. She beheld the vastness of dead light Orga’s eye engendered as it cast upon the room from below, back-lighting Ichinose. The glass was fracturing to a shatterpoint beneath her and Ichinose. Belvera was out of reach until she stood up straight, and doing that was sure to break the glass and doom the photographer.

Doom… Yuki…

Belvera was the only one without her mind stuck on something, and that was their only chance to enable someone else.

“How good is your telekinesis kid?!”

Io shot a look back up to her that said enough. She was beyond feeble at the best of times, and her failing seemed death for them now if such a skill would be useful.

And yet, something compelled her to not turn the idea away, something flickering in her chest as she glimpsed the tear in Ichinose’s eye as the woman lay on crumbling floor with death just beyond…

She reached up and grabbed Belvera’s hand, the fairy’s fingers illuminating in a dim glow.

Orga’s claw glanced off an invisible barrier, kept just inches away from scraping the surface of the room. The blow did transfer, knocking the room backwards but in one piece as it lodged itself back into the corpse of CCI tower. The room now rightside up again, Ichinose flopped forward onto firm ground just as a small form tumbled into her lap.

Fighting delirium, she was greeted to a very unexpected sight of Belvera; back to normal size at approximately the scale of a doll, groaning weakly in her midst. Had the fairy the ability and breath, she’d have explained what a transfer spell was; or how it was surreal of her of all beings to entrust a human with the boost. But the eldest Elias was too spent to complain. Yuki limped upwards, very carefully collecting the fairy in her hand whilst fighting surges of pain from her right shoulder. Hitting the window so hard must have broken something.

Ichinose’s thoughts very quickly turned to their other company, and when she looked up her jaw dropped. Barely visible lines of energy pushed outwards against the windows and walls, reinforcing them with solid barriers of telekinesis. Io Shinoda, sitting on her knees with her eyes entirely cast in black, held her face from the strain. The same waves of energy lifted and slowly billowed her hair like she was underwater, gravity overcome in different intervals.

“U-Up to you, brat,” Belvera panted as she slumped into Yuki’s grasp, eyes on Io, “Don’t screw up.”

Io trembled, holding onto her face still as she rocked back and forth slightly. At times the room seemed to slant and slump, only to get craned back into place. Walls that sagged pushed back to straightness, the ceiling and floor similarly reinforced. Yuki Ichinose didn’t understand how exactly this all worked, only what had been done. Belvera nodded to Io weakly before passing out, having transferred all she had left in the tank into bolstering the hybrid’s typically weak telekinesis well beyond its normal potential.

Yuki put Belvera down as gently as she could so as not to jostle her. Garu-Garu groaned weakly, the entity more a golem than an actual dragon. Without his master active to fuel him with her mana, the shobijin steed was forced into a torpor. With diminishing power, Garu-Garu dutifully landed beside and curled around its master. Ichinose cautiously looked to Io warily, still unsure of what was going on and if any action by her would ruin this tenuous stability.

Standing with her back to the window, Ichinose noticed the psychic girl twitch and whimper. The dim glow of yellow overtaking the room, starting small and then swelling to blinding brightness. With Io’s fidgeting and obvious fear stretching across her face, the psychic projection keeping the room stable seemed to waver. The walls creaked and the floor sagged. Ichinose knew not what horrid sight was outside, only the sad one before her as a tear ran down Io’s face. The black veins around the girl’s eyes looked so swollen they seemed poised to burst.

A cold lance had shot through the psychic’s chest, one that stopped her lungs from working. Io Shinoda felt herself both frozen in place from fear and embraced, Yuki holding her face and obscuring the horrific monstrosity outside with her own visage as she got between it and Io.

“Hey, hey... Eyes on me? Keep breathing, keep doing what you’re doing. You gotta breathe,” Ichinose assured, keeping her mouth open and exhaling audibly a few times as to coax the self-suffocating girl to do the same, “Don’t look at it, just at me. Breathe!”

A crack formed along the walls as something jostled the room, the edge of Orga’s snout pushing against the telekinetic barrier that wavered. Io felt the exhaling breath, smelling and hearing it as she saw Yuki enact it multiple times. Somewhere in the simple recesses of her mind, she copied the movement and at last sucked a puff of oxygen into her starved body. Prior to taking a breath, her vision had become fuzzy from strain, all but the yellow backlit glow of Orga’s eye obscured until this… brave imbecile got in the way of seeming damnation itself.

Her vision cleared slightly, Ichinose’s tearful face in her gaze as the wall was forced back into place by a wave of force.

The rumbling warble of the abomination outside sounded of spite, of disgust at being denied what it sought. Ichinose didn’t turn around, but she could still feel its gaze upon them both now. Perhaps it recognized her too now, remembering how she interfered the first time they tried to consume the girl? Or perhaps it was still hyperfocused on Io and was enraged at being denied her a moment longer.

And the living thunder first heard in-person at the cliffside, the first clear thing Ichinose could hear with clarity, was not going to let them get her either. Through the shaking window there was a flash of fangs and claws lashing out and stabbing into the disproportionate mass. Orga was wrenched away from the tower whilst letting out an ear splitting scream. Godzilla threw his full might to the side to heft the heavier kaiju off the ground in a skilled throw, capitalizing it as Orga went airborne by shoving his back into the falling alien to knife into the shoulder with the jagged, bladed spines lining his back.

Orga hit the ground with a magnificent crash two hundred meters from its starting position, the bulbous back and shoulders of its form caving into the ground. As the smoke thrown up by the impact started to clear, Godzilla’s silhouette differed from before. Tarry ichors ran down his dorsum and spattered the ground before him. Clutched in his jaws and hands was Orga’s severed arm, snapped and sliced off at the shoulder.

Ichinose stole one last glance at the battle over her shoulder, Godzilla having his back to the tower. Yuji had told her there was no doubt, this magnificent leviathan was Io’s childhood playmate all grown up. And the suspicions she had of him having saved them on purpose at the cliffside were all but confirmed now at the quick glimpse of body language she saw as he put his back to them.

There was only one thing on Godzilla’s mind right now, and it was the same as hers; an identical purpose that led them both to Kyoto this very night. In Yuki’s mind, they’d both come to protect Io. It was surreal to feel a sense of commonality with a kaiju, and she very well knew she might just be projecting.

But frankly, she stuffed that doubt away and steeled her resolve. He was fighting physically to save them from death by putting an end to that abomination. Io was fighting mentally to save them from falling or crumbling to their doom. Any mental fortitude faith or hope could afford was not just optimal, but required.

Yuki held Io to her as she wished Junior luck, feeling the tremors of his enormous footsteps as the kaiju went off to battle.

The dragon’s breath slithered out with a disgusted grumble, spitting the arm out and moving to drop the limp piece aside. The severed limb was still for a moment. But only for a moment. In a mere second it began to violently convulse, fingers spasming and writhing like a dying insect that refused to meet its end. It writhed and flexed, the palm splitting open like a flower lined with teeth that lunged for Godzilla’s face to either latch on or force itself down his throat whilst the fingers grabbed the head. Odo Island’s legend sneered, shocked but unafraid; taking two of the enormous fingers into each hand and wrenching forwards to snap the joints whilst his spines flashed with azure. The dancing radiance conducted into the limb with a minor nuclear pulse, the shockwave blasting off the remaining finger and incinerating much of the outer hide of the hand.

The limb mutely screamed as Godzilla threw it away, the writhing mass landing next to the still fallen and now three-limbed Orga. If one was expecting a peaceful merging, it was both shocking and disgusting to see what followed. The two pieces to the whole attacked one another, the limb stabbing with clawed digits into Orga’s midsection and lacerating it with claw and grown fang. Orga meanwhile snatched at it with its remaining arm and gnawed at the severed upper-arm with its vaguely serpentine head. The individual parts, be they drones or something else, no longer recognized each other as part of a collective.

The multi-millennia old empire, at least in respect to the portion that had come to Terra, had been torn apart from the inside. For all the minds they once bore, now infected with individuality like any other organism.

Godzilla’s dorsal spines began to alight as he took aim at the display before him and wasted no time firing. The azure torrent loosed from fanged jaws, burning off any lingering bile from ripping the arm off, and blasted across Orga’s dorsum, charring and burning through quickly for several seconds until a blinding flash intercepted the breath attack. There was a shimmering, a shroud of transparent energy covering the struggling abominations just like what the UFO had shown prior to defend itself at Tokyo. The barrier shield flickered, barely holding and spurring Godzilla to snarl and amplify the onslaught. Loose cables from the city street and CCI tower suddenly sprung up like a horde of serpents, wrapping around Godzilla’s snout and neck to wrench his head back and spare Orga from a quick demise after the shield would give out.

Stumbling and trying not to get thrown into the CCI tower, the confused kaiju had no reprieve when one half of the severed UFO, airborne again, smashed into his head at full speed. Godzilla grunted, caught in a situation where it was as if the city itself and the invader were both fighting him at the same time. Yanked by the cables into another street, several of the human-crafted vines of metal twisted and knotted together for extra strength as they stabbed through two surrounding buildings to cave in part of their span. Debris and rubble exploded outwards and the tremendous masses sagged before the UFO half flew through them both. It smashed into Godzilla, knocking the off-balance kaiju over, as it carved out a slice from each building. The tremendous enormities crumbled and roared as they fell upon the downed kaiju, not doing much damage but managing to at the very least buy a moment of time.

Enough for Orga to get ahold of its rebelling arm, crush it to a pulp with its free hand and jaws, and stuff the biomass down its expanding jaws like a snake engulfing an egg. Bones cracked and muscle tore, but in rapid and ugly display, arm bones soon wrapped in sinew burst from the torn shoulder. A new arm formed in a mere ten seconds, Orga briefly tested the limb by whirling its shoulder around in a circle before marching towards the still thrashing and rubble-covered Godzilla.

=========

Hang onto something!
Hang onto something!
Hang onto something!

“HANG ONTO SOMETHING!”

He felt delirium, thrown about from the force of gravity getting upended and twisted about. The walls became the floor, the floor, the ceiling, and the cityscape outside into spans of empty air. It was only by listening to the voice that he had the mental fortitude to grab onto his seat. Legs dangling in the air, he screamed aloud due to having a shoulder yanked from its socket with a wet pop.

Frantic eyes looked about the interior of the train car, bodies and belongings flying everywhere in a chaotic whirl of people and possessions. Looking outside offered the only clarity in the world, and even then the mind boggled. The sky was a mishmash of falling smoke and pillars, his mind barely able to comprehend he was actually upside down and looking at the Tokyo skyline from above. That he was above twenty story high rises and centers was, in itself, uncanny.

Everyone was shouting, screaming. But in the mess of it all, he thought he heard his name called. A quick turn of the head left him seeing a ghostly face. The pale, terrified visage behind wide glasses and that ridiculous trim of a haircut. Shiro Miyasaka was hanging from the handrail by a single arm, his feet braced against the window that had become the floor.

He was yammering something, but everything was deafened by the screech of splitting metal. He looked up to spy an enormity obscure the window and press into it. The interior bent until it split, the window shattering. The tip of a mass erupted into the train car, splitting sheet metal as it tore through the structure. As impossible as it was to believe, it was but a fragment of the living mountain just outside the walls and windows. Just as the breaking of metal had drowned out Shiro, so too were the death throes of the train drowned out by a roar that made Heaven and earth quake.

The window he was standing on gave way, and Shiro lost his grip on the handrail. More claws erupted into the train’s interior. He reached, only to feel the edge of Shiro’s fingers slip across his own. Whether it was he just couldn’t reach far enough or Shiro trying to not pull him out with him, he’d never know.

He’d only know the pale look on his friend’s face as Shiro fell thirty stories into the ruins below. A whole human life, one he’d grown up with, laughed with, celebrated with, and worked with amongst the others. Discarded out the window like dust. The same eerie blue that cast across Shiro was similarly transposed onto Asuka’s face when she, the one who’d been calling out earlier, was caught in the glow of a living tragedy’s judgment. The azure rays just barely missed Katagiri, but he was forced to see who hadn’t been so lucky.

Not for long though. The train car was dropped, and Mitsuo hit his head on impact. It was 1984, and this had been his nightmare every night since...

“HANG ONTO SOMETHING!” the voice, Belvera, through the satellite phone cried out, the last thing it would transmit before a thud that Katagiri suspected had broken it.

Bloodied hands robotically had pressed the bandaging tight against the limb to cover up the grazing wound left by the bullet which had torn skin but thankfully hadn’t bitten deep into flesh. Mitsuo Katagiri had long ago discarded the most optimal sanitation options in light of their crisis. He could only hope the amount of blood he could see was truly the majority, and that the darkness of the blackout wasn’t obscuring most of it. The EMP that shrouded the ancient city of Kyoto into shadows did reach the edges of the city where Kyoto Biotechnics was located, but the back-up generator was still running to offer some paltry amount of power.

He continued to work without emotion, simple objectives and completion of one step after another. And yet, the phone’s last word continued to ring in his mind as he operated on the still unconscious Yuji Shinoda.

Sanitizing gel, antibacterial applications, emergency medical staples, and an ample amount of pressure bandages. Even if the bullet hadn’t ripped muscle or tore into an artery, moving around too much could risk something dangerous. Especially given Shinoda was far from 100% otherwise, one of his hands was still in a glove-like brace due to its fingers being broken or dislocated from his encounter with a drone in the computer room back at Tokyo. He was still unconscious from the shock.

As if by some magic, a familiar; if slightly distinct, roar jarred him from the echelons of memory his mindscape had journeyed through. Katagiri had heard a roar a lot like up close back when this all began 15 years ago, back in Japan’s other capital. Back when a monster took away two of the most important people to him.

Katagiri’s eyes were upon the wound on Yuji’s leg, even as Godzilla’s bellow reverberated through the halls of the very building it had been born in.

Yuji had hated the beast too, once. Maybe the distractions of caring for Io as a single parent had spared him the festering hatred Mitsuo had been put through; but he knew his old friend hated the monstrosity that took his wife and Io’s mother away. At one point, he thought it might even reunite them. After all, Asuka had once told him he was the top choice for Io’s godparent if something ever happened to her and Yuji.

That night in Tokyo, back in ‘84; it split them. But… he’d been the one to kick the wedge into place. If not before the egg hatched, then certainly after.

And now, that very same beast he once thought of as a monster was their only chance at killing the Millennian. And it had been his own hand that got them into this mess, his own that nearly took Io’s only other parent away.

Sticky, warm red ran down his leg after leaking from his side. Katagiri had to stabilize himself on the table briefly to avoid falling over from his light headedness. The medical kit’s bandages were used up, but his focus was on something else anyways.

The satellite phone continued to leak static, but the dim light of the room those on the other side were in was still visible even from this distance. Another of Godzilla’s battle cries echoed through the halls of Kyoto Institute, spurring Mitsuo Katagiri to steal a quick glance at the illuminated behemoth as it... He, battled it out against the latest iteration of the Millennian’s rape of the natural world.

Katagiri watched the blue glow, not with a sense of horror and spite; but awe for the majesty it was. He’d never seen it that way before.

-You never were a monster..-

Not as an innocent youth strapped to a table getting shocked, not as the bold teenager rushing off to battle; nor as the living titan trying to cancel an apocalypse. Katagiri pulled the cap off a syringe containing pure adrenaline.

-Time for me to stop being one..-

He stuck Yuji with it, knowing the right place and controlling his tremors long enough to manage.

After a few minutes Yuji Shinoda lurched upwards, adrenaline firing through his veins and spurring him to have tremors on the edges of his vision. He forced his eyes shut and rubbed at them, trying to stop the pounding in his head from knocking him out once again.

A hand on his shoulder and quiet voice helped to pull him back into reality.

“Easy, I just loaded you with every pain killer we had that wouldn’t knock you out, and enough adrenaline to run an elephant… Yuji, you have to leave.”

==============

Orga bellowed a warbling shriek as it was thrown several hundred meters down a mainstreet and was sent grinding across the pavement and burst concrete for one hundred more. Godzilla hissed, stomping after the brute with glowing determination in his eyes. Said eye swiveled aside in its socket to lock onto movement even in spite of the darkness of the city. The subtlest of movements caught his attention even before the front half of the Millennian UFO came erupting out of the smoking ruins of damaged buildings it had used for cover.

Exploding outwards in a shower of glass and metal shards, the craft’s formerly eerily perfect reflective surface was marred by gouges and rends. There was only enough of the former surface to reflect the glimmering shooting stars in the night sky high above, the incoming warheads’ image flew over the surface before melding into the oncoming reflection of Godzilla’s eyes. It flew for his face to bash and distract, whatever intelligence or programming guiding it not expecting a beast to react the way Godzilla did.

The kaiju whirled around and smashed his tail across the flat of the craft’s top, sending it careening into the main street, nose first. The craft crashed with the sound of a thousand gongs, digging into the ground with how much force was behind its ramming impacts. They’d been enough to distract and stun Godzilla and he was getting sick and tired of the craft constantly badgering him. He planted a foot on the UFO’s dorsum. Whilst the azure returned across the dragon’s back spines, something else was planned.

Kyoto Tower, several hundred feet of steel and concrete, had been the tallest structure in the old city when it had been completed for the 1964 Olympics. Its peak atop its levels of steel rings and concrete made to resemble an old candle was on eye level with Godzilla himself. It was only surpassed by the C.C.I. tower before it suffered partial collapse. Another structure would have to bear the first place as the hotel tower was not number one again for any longer as the fight had careened across the city to be right next to it. Grabbing the empty structure by the base and breaking it off at its stem, Godzilla hefted the tower and, to the shock of any who’d observed his father’s past battles, wielded it like a spear.

The top of the tower plunged into the opened port of what had been the UFO’s cannon, cracking and bending with strain. The steel and concrete wasn’t as strong as the material the craft was made of, but that didn’t entirely matter with how much force had been put behind it and the masses involved. The UFO sparked and vibrated, the end of the tower lancing out through the gaping split that had bisected the Millennian unit since G-Force’s gambit blasted it in half.

Speared into the ground, the UFO groaned and shifted lazily, unable to lift off with the sheer mass holding it down now.

The ground split open with a mass of cables and wiring spiraling together into metallic tendrils as they flew towards the kaiju. The goal was to wrap around his limbs and neck to inhibit movement and pull Godzilla away from the UFO, distracting and restricting him as the mass had done before. A knowing gleam was in the kaiju’s eye upon whipping around to face the oncoming ambush, Godzilla throwing his jaws open to loose a salvo of azure plasma. The cables were flash-fried, with the beam burning right through them to cleave through the length of the roads. Glowing red, molten slag and burned concrete partially filled the new crevice, putting an end to that advantage.

A turnabout to bring his weapon to bear against Orga after hearing a screech of fracturing metal and splitting concrete, Godzilla released a sharp yelp of pain when a large mass smashed into and exploded against his face. Not from a detonation, but sheer kinetic force causing the large projectile to fragment into a cloud of shrapnel and debris after splitting upon his brow. The dragon staggered backwards, stumbling a step over step before regaining his standing.

Down the long street, Orga had changed tactics. Grabbing enormous handfuls of the buildings around them with their left arm, its irregular, giant fingers constricted and snapped through the structures like a mass of pythons. Stabbing its free arm into the ground to brace and offer up more room to move, Orga whirled the debris bearing limb about. Squeezing the snapping masses of civilization to a condensed ball of shrapnel in their hand, the brute turned about and swung its arm in a wide arc. With each arm being longer than the abomination was tall, the effect was akin to a living trebuchet.

Between the range of motion and sheer power of the limb, the end result shattered numerous windows around the horrific thing when its pitched volley broke the sound barrier. In the aftermath of the second salvo striking Godzilla in the chest, the sheer force of the volley was one to match its speed. Fragments of metal were lodged in the reptilian hide, with a noticeable crater punched into the chest. At least some of the uproar of sound from the impact had been from ribs cracking. He was silent beyond the initial outcry of pain. Godzilla’s body was thrown backwards and all but the back of his heel was lifted off the ground with one foot already airborne.

Orga grabbed and whirled around another pitch, aiming for the remaining leg’s knee. Another supersonic throw was made before Godzilla could counter. Dodging the hit was impossible the moment it was thrown, it was too fast and cleared the distance too quickly. The saving grace was the windup was so telegraphed Godzilla had seen the hit coming well before it was loosed.

The gigantic foot touched back down onto the pavement and pivoted with a swing of the tail to the left; helping turn the entire body alongside it. The impact still nicked the upper flank of the thigh, ripping skin off from sheer force and spattering the streets in ichor red; but the rest of the projectile kept careening past the dragon and off towards the mountains. Bursting through several buildings without stopping, the deadly pitch still had more than enough force to smash through the growing dome shield forming a perimeter around the city.

In one side and out the other, the pitch still had the momentum to come bursting out of Kyoto’s edge and fly over Commander Aso in his cockpit. Even by the time he ducked down reflexively, it had already traveled several hundred more meters. The volley deafened the world with its explosive impact that caved through a part of the eastern mountains like a bunker buster.

And yet, Godzilla weathered another hit like that as he charged to close the distance. Shrugging off a horrific strike to his gut, the dinosaur dropped his clawed hands into the ground and kept coming. Ribs had snapped back into place, letting the enraged reptile shriek a battle cry as he rushed forth on all fours, kicking off the ground as much as he was hauling himself forward hand over hand.

Orga’s eyes widened as he pounced, fang and claw glinting before both sank into the alien’s neck and arm. Orga shrieked and wrenched Godzilla off its arm, only for the stripped-off hunks of mass and tissue to make the arm collapse in on itself with a bony crack. A flash of blue across dorsal spines and piercing eyes, and the nuclear pulse-infused fist shattered the bone in Orga’s arm to sever the limb at the elbow. Unsatisfied with the mauling and its opponent’s stubborn refusal to die, Godzilla redirected his condensed energies and started to build up energy in his maw just as the golden radiance filled Orga’s grotesque shoulder cavity. A desperation hammer-blow of Orga’s remaining fist atop his head to floor the saurian hardly stalled his onslaught. Floored but fighting through the daze, Godzilla snarled and pounced forward to bite down on Orga’s lower thigh at the kneecap. Thrashing with teeth lodged in the limb, he continued what the energy had built up to and fired point-blank.

Burning wrath seared into Orga’s smoking flesh before exploding out the back of its leg to sever it from its thigh. Kneecapped by plasma fire, Orga crumbled onto its side in obvious agony. But an insane mind couldn’t be clouded by pain. The abomination, mutilated and yet stubbornly healing, grabbed Godzilla by the head and neck and all but shoved the saurian’s face into the port of its shoulder cannon. The resounding crash and whirl of the kinetic energy cannon deafened the city on impact with Godzilla’s skull. Sheer force soon sent the titan hurtling backwards through several streets and buildings before the fire ceased. All vanished in the ensuing cloud of smoke and ash.

Orga gripped a building, staggering onto its remaining leg and steadying itself with its good arm; heaving heavily despite not needing to breath. Eyes were transfixed on where Godzilla had been shot into with a mix of apprehension, readiness, and perhaps even fear.

It only took a few seconds for an enraged roar to come bursting out of the smoke and ash cloud Godzilla had disappeared into, pushing the sooty air outwards in a pillar to split the veil. Glowing eyes rose up from the ground, Godzlla’s incoming footsteps steady and controlled. Emerging from the dusty clouds, much of his scales and skin from the face to the chest was split and bleeding; ichors erupting from fissures torn by the magnitude of the force cannon. And even so, they were healing. The dried blood remained, but the wounds stitched themselves back together like nothing had happened; so long as he had the energy to do that.

The fact Godzilla has this strength did after swimming thousands of kilometers and then blasting his way through hundreds more underground to get here, was proof of how determined the dragon was. Even not at perfect condition with the distance to wear on him, he was still bound and determined to put an end to this.

Opposite the dragon by almost half a kilometer, the abomination shuddered. Covered in its own gore, Orga’s body convulsed and sparked. Someone else’s blood had seeped into its wounds and its body assimilated the biomass on automatic response. The chaotic growth engendered by absorbing more of Godzilla’s genome was uneven, disorderly, and imperfect. Something besides just the incomplete DNA was missing to put order to it all. It needed more, it would have more, even the totality. Trying to swallow up and assimilate all of Godzilla was the option, but there was another individual who might show promise who’d be much, much easier to entirely consume.

But for that, Orga had to get around Godzilla. Imperfection would have to do. Limbs regenerated, malformed and unorganized. The leg was bulkier, stouter, with vestigial toes erupting from the sides. The new arm was even bigger than the other, a twisting mass of fingers partially fused together into three prongs that also bore maple-leaf shaped plates erupting from the sides. The many wounds across Orga’s hide were stitched together with ingrown scales and similar plates.

Unnoticed by both, some of Godzilla’s own blood had spilled onto the removed arm and leg and reacted to the lingering radioactive energies. Azure sparks and jolts shot through the severed arm, which absorbed the spilled blood and started to rapidly grow in mass. And unlike before, Orga didn’t immediately try to reabsorb the mass. And yet, grow it still did. All while the caples continued to try and free the craft from the spear of a tower.

==========

Staggering through the halls of Kyoto Institute, Yuji Shinoda found himself increasingly in the one supporting instead of limping as he and Katagiri paced along with arms hooked around the other’s shoulder.

Shinoda swore and tapped furiously at his earpiece, before ripping it out in a moment of frustration, “No use reconnecting to anything that might be in the tower, the blast shorted out everything.”

“Or their phone broke,” Mitsuo plainly noted with a deep frown stretched across his jaw, “All the more reason you have to get there. Are the bandages holding?”

Yuji grunted as he tried to turn his shoulder and head enough to look down and check, but was resisted for a moment by Katagiri, who was laser-guided levels of focus on making sure the last of the pressure bandages held himself after seeing the slightest bit of strain from Shinoda. Assured of his work, Mitsuo let him go.

“Didn’t know you took first aid,” Shinoda huffed as he stood up, testing the leg back and forth with a swing to ensure mobility even with the pain killers and staples at work under the bandages.

“EMT class of ‘85,” Mitsuo responded dryly, too broken down to emote much at all.

Shinoda glanced down before averting his eyes. He’d noticed Mitsuo limping, just as he’d previously noticed the reddening dampness on Mitsuo’s leg and immediately let his eyes wander to the medical kit Katagiri kept in the office, only to frown when Katagiri pulled it from him quickly. Yuji thought he saw a decided lack of bandages in the kit, which had been largely used up on him, but he couldn’t be sure in the low light.

“I’m trained for this, you’re not. I’ll handle myself,” Mitsuo Katagiri said without Shinoda being sure if that was a logical excuse or just an excuse of another breed talking.

Shinoda nonetheless made a motion for the medicine kit, spurring Katagiri to soldier them on after tossing the thing aside to land on a table they passed by. Katagiri pulled him along towards the garages, limping forward with Yuji and through the doorway. As they entered, Shinoda could feel the full attention of his only company, despite the lack of eye contact.

"I would have killed your daughter just now," Katagiri noted grimly as he staggered slightly to remain standing, "... Why on earth would you ever want to help me anyways? I'm an attempted murderer, Yuji."

Yuji Shinoda looked the man in the eyes for several spans of moments, lips pursed as words were considered and formulated behind them. It was only by some fluke that Belvera was there to save Io and Yuki, something no one could have possibly predicted. Katagiri was right. By his own words, Mitsuo just tried to kill several people.

It was perhaps the rumbling of the battling Kaiju, the room briefly lit up by a bright blue ray of light, that spurred Yuji's focus to the city beyond as he turned to gaze out the window for a short time. The outline of the CCI tower's skeleton was still visible.

"Taking revenge wouldn't solve anything right now. We can dispense justice and account for sins when the world isn't about to end and we don't have bigger things to worry about," Shinoda shrugged, pushing any lingering temptations aside.

Shinoda stole a glance at the clock, which was still frozen at the point the EMP had gone off. He didn’t want to think about how much time was left as-is given how close the minute hand was to midnight already, "The bombs will glass and atomize the city if they hit. I need to go save my daughter and others.”

Shinoda’s eyes trailed down to the stain of red, visible even in the low light, splattered across Katagiri’s leg.

“Mitsuo, you can’t keep ignoring that.”

“Even focused on your daughter, you noticed?”

“My perception is selective, but you know it can be good. And I don’t perceive any medical kits around here in this room,” Shinoda huffed as he swayed his outstretched hand about to indicate a decided lack of medical equipment in the garage, “Unless you intend me to put stitches in with a nail gun.”

Katagiri was silent for a short time, lips pursed. Yuji could see he nodded to himself briefly once, as if internally conceding something.

“You still worry about me, after everything I’ve done to you…” Katagiri whispered as he stood up to his full height for both a sense of pride but also poise despite the pain he was in. He finally stood side by side with his oldest friend in the same building they had made themselves adversaries out of each other half a decade ago, “You win.”

In the multi-year conflict, ever since they were torn apart, despite every victory Mitsuo and CCI had scored again and again, Katagiri conceded he’d lost the war in the end. If he wasn’t assured when he realized in horror how close he’d come to killing his best friend in a moment of panic, he was now. For two who both tried to better humanity, the victor of the contest was whom in the end was the better man.

“Bombs about to hit and you’re off to save your daughter and colleague. Enemy and friend wounded and you’re concerned for them…? That… is what I was hoping you’d say, Yuji,” Mitsuo whispered with another affirming nod, “Family or friend, I can only help you save one of them right now.”

It was a hard decision, even if there was an obvious answer. Shinoda would no doubt look for an angle to save both. Katagiri had long styled himself the realist of the two, even if certain realizations as of late made it clear to him Yuji had always been the more rational of them. What irony it was, that he’d spent years thinking himself the one making the hard decisions that needed to be done, only to find he’d been fooling himself. It was now, of all times, that he got the chance to actually make a hard call so Shinoda didn’t have to whilst knowing it was the right one.

He tugged at their joined shoulders and got Yuji to help him get to a lockbox mounted on a wall. The keycode was thankfully analog, with the numbers rolled into place before the lockbox opened up with a click. A set of keys were drawn out and thrown to Shinoda, who managed to catch them in his hands despite the darkness.

Katagiri turned and pushed a button on the wall, a low hum audible as the garage door started to slide open. Confused as to how this spot still had power, Yuji followed Mitsuo’s line of sight upwards.

“The south garage here is built within a faraday cage, disperses the electromagnetic pulses that would shut down most of the electricity. Between it and a generator, relics of the Cold War, this is the only place with power in the building,” Katagiri explained, having to support himself with a hand on his desk, ”If that thing that Godzilla is fighting released an EMP like I think it did, my car should still work.”

“Faraday cage of that size...” Shinoda shook his head slightly, “Can’t imagine that was easy to set up. I never noticed.”

“I’m a paranoid man, not an idle one. I can get better use of medical equipment here and you can get a ride to go save your daughter,” Katagiri huffed, some strain in his breath with a bit of his old, dry tone returning, “… Keys are to an old model diesel, you know the one.”

Recollection from a time decades ago flickered in Shinoda’s eyes, “.. Wait, that old blue number we got working off vegetable oil in ‘83? You kept that ridiculous engineering project?”

Mitsuo just shrugged with a small smirk, “Never paid for gas since, just kept tuning it up… Between age and the faraday cage to disperse the electromagnetic pulse, if there’s any vehicle in Kyoto that’ll work properly, it’s that one.”

Yuji Shinoda felt a cold of uncertainty sting through his veins. Fear of what lay beyond the walls of this facility, fear of the nuclear onslaught coming, and the utter dread of not knowing how his daughter and the others might be right now. The glimpse of a blood stain and smear on the keys from Katagiri’s fingers was also self-evident in its moroseness, literally putting his blood on Yuji’s hands. He was frozen, standing in the dim illumination offered by the opened garage door with Kyoto beyond.

A growing light overshadowed the dim brightness offered up by the numerous flaming and smoking buildings. Yuji Shinoda felt his presence swallowed up by the glow, one of azure that filled the room and washed over him like it had fifteen years ago. He looked up to behold it, feeling the light spread over the city.

A pillar of blue cleaved out of a mound of shifting rubble and scythed through the air of Japan’s ancient capital, smashing into a dark mass that was quickly illuminated to be Orga’s shrieking enormity. The alien hulk shrieked and was blasted down one of the large roads going past the grounds of the old Imperial Palace grounds. Old statues and hedging trembled and quaked whilst the enormous brute was sent grinding down the street past them, Orga being pushed along by a torrent of blue plasma simultaneously similar and yet distinct from the version Yuji and Mitsuo had seen up-close in the country’s modern capital.

Godzilla came exploding out of the rubble, not reacting to the barrier shield that had once been around the UFO returning to intercept the onslaught aimed at Orga. The shield absorbed some, but not all of the blast that billowed around it. A glimpse of silver behind the saurian leviathan caught the eye just as the beam was cut off.

Godzilla maintained the glowing charge and whirled around, smashing his tail across the top of the UFO, which was flying off kilter with half of Kyoto Tower still lodged inside it. The craft had been trying to ram into him again in a flanking maneuver but the added weight of the impromptu spear disrupted its flight. The tail smashed into it with a resounding crash that could be compared to a cannon ball striking a gong. The still flying half of the UFO was sent careening away, nose diving into the ground. The pavement around Godzilla erupted and the cables forming the tendrils had returned, only to get summarily flash-fried by the monster’s azure beam. Godzilla had been anticipating the multi-pronged attack and had been holding the charge-up for that purpose.

Letting the azure glows about him dissipate after burning a swath of ground around him, Godzilla hissed and turned back towards the old palace grounds. A titan without fear, the dragon marched forward after its foe with another resonating roar of defiance at both the invader, and the deadly works of man twinkling in the night sky.

His powerful roar, filled with conviction, echoed to Shinoda’s ears and he felt something stir. He didn’t know what it was, and that bothered him. But, even with the uncertainty, he could detect a steeled resolve as his eyes traveled past the duel and onto the skeleton of CCI tower. Perhaps the giant saurian’s conviction was infectious. Privy to that fact and not letting that pessimism break his stride, part of his mind really wanted to think the observation Godzilla seemed to be intentionally keeping Orga away from it was true.

“Godzilla’s keeping that thing busy. I have my chance, and it’s the only one I’m getting to save Asuka’s legacy,” Shinoda frowned as he made for the door but glanced back at Katagiri, “Are you going to be alive when I get back to have a piece of you?"

Katagiri weakly laughed, a sickly chortle from his throat huffing out wetly.

Considering Katagiri, Shinoda looked up from the keys and spotted the very obviously injured man limping towards the stairwell entrance on the other side of the room with a map and flashlight in hand he’d gotten off a desk.

“There’s an earpiece set-up with a tuning box and bit in the car. Tune into radio station 2210. I’ve got a transceiver stored here that might be our only way to communicate. Once you're on ground level you’ll have no idea if the monsters are close or how to navigate. Keep your headlights on and I’ll help direct you,” he said as he stepped into the stairway door.

“After you get yourself patched up…!” Yuji shouted.

Mitsuo Katagiri paused, his back to his only remaining friend in the world.

“After… you get yourself patched up, then give me directions… I won’t be long to get out of the garage,” Shinoda insisted with a deep frown on his face, as the excuse hung in the air.

“After I find another kit upstairs,” Katagiri dryly retorted, making no illumination if it was the truth or just an excuse, “Get going, you’re already late enough.”

Shinoda turned and sprinted for the old car he’d once worked on. He rushed down the long aisle of vehicles to find the right one, trying to ignore the flood of mixing emotions. There was still plenty of rage in his chest, broiling and steaming at both near causes for him losing his daughter tonight. It mixed and churned with the near unstoppable sense of hopelessness engendered by the darkness of the blackout and the glimpses of the flickering warheads in the night sky. All he could do was to force himself to move, one action to another. Open a door, run down a hall, open another door, enter the garage, find that old engineering side-project he, Asuka, Shiro, and Mitsuo had cooked up a decade ago for fun. Key in the ignition, engine revving to life regardless of the death of man’s works by decree of the abomination’s EMP.

He drove autonomously, only registering the outside world when the satellite phone buzzed to life with a weak voice.

“The west exit is destroyed by fallen rubble, I think it used to be a helicopter. Take the east gate.”

Yuji obeyed, trying not to think about how extremely fast Katagiri had to have been to tend to himself and be ready to help guide him through the streets like this. As the car rolled on, Shinoda couldn’t see the pair of eyes watching from the rooftop of the tower.

Painkillers being just about the only thing going through his system, Katagiri was already on the rooftop and had already been watching. With how slow he’d been moving prior and how quickly Yuji had gotten into the car, there was little illusion that Mitsuo had to have made a beeline for the rooftop vantage point without pause.

Despite all of the indignation in his heart, a tear still crossed the corner of Shinoda’s eye enough that he was forced to blink it away. The echoing roar of Godzilla’s battle cry, a thundering utterance to deafen heaven and earth in a quake of power, worked to shout out the despair from multiple sources. Focusing upon the task at hand, Yuji Shinoda drove into Kyoto proper from the eastern gate.

=============

It took everything out of her for Yuki Ichinose to try and get Io breathing at a steady rate again. It was a trying effort, as the girl would start crying out in pain that seemingly had no source again. At first Yuki frantically thought it was something the fairy had done to her, some uncanny psychic whiplash effect of bolstering Io’s telekinesis to enormous levels.

Only to be reminded of earlier when the girl doubled over like she’d just been shot by an invisible bullet. This time it happened when the room became flooded with light. Yuki had been piecemeal watching the battle, mostly focusing on Io, seeing Godzilla manage to spear the UFO into the ground and then bulldoze into the monstrosity for a time. It was hard to see exactly what was going on in the darkness aside from when Godzilla briefly lit himself up with azure might; but she’d seen carnivores mauling something before. It was the abomination’s counterattack that sent Godzilla flying back through several buildings via the torrent of crackling yellow energy. It was in tandem with the latest outburst from Io, who’d been twitching and whimpering from moments prior when Godzilla was closing the distance.

In the moment the light flooded the room, Io grabbed at her face and screamed horrifically, throwing herself backwards as if to try and pull away from something reflexively. Ichinose had to catch her, else the girl would have thrown herself to the ground head first.

“Io?! Io what’s wrong?! Where does it-” she cringed and her voice died in her throat as what she saw.

Io’s watered eyes looked back up at her as she quivered in pain. Her entire face and head down to her collar was darkly colored, unsettlingly so. It took a split second for Ichinose to realize the girl’s top half was almost completely covered in ugly bruises. She’d thought she’d glimpsed them before, but now it was obvious. It was uncanny seeing the blood vessels beneath the skin burst like that all over her body. It wasn’t like she’d been struck multiple times by many fists, where the bruising was localized and contrasted with her skin.

The entire top half of Io’s poor body from the chest up was an ugly marring, as if every blood vessel in her skin had popped. And even more bizarrely, almost to make Yuki think her eyes were playing tricks on her, the markings were going away. As if the skin was drying itself to change color, the flooding of bloody fluids from leaking, bruised vessels and veins was being drawn back.

Yuki was still glad that, by happenstance, she’d not touched the bruised areas and had been holding onto Io by her arms.

“Junior he’s hurt-” Io whimpered, unable to articulate more, but she was still heaving and gritting her teeth so badly she seemed poised to crack one.

He was hurt, he was hurt?! She looked like she should be rushed to the ER if the damage wasn't somehow repairing itself. How did she get hurt anyways, it was Godzilla who-

The brief glimpse she’d gotten of Godzilla getting blasted by the abomination, head-first, came to mind just as the echoes of the dragon’s enraged roars shook the air as he re-engaged.

The walls continued to crack and split, as sweat poured down Yuki's brow as she figured out what at least some of this all meant. Somehow, by Belvera ramping up her abilities, closer proximity, or an unknown catalyst she could not understand; Io wasn’t just feeling strain from fear or exertion. Additional bruises, ones in thinner lines resembling cuts, suddenly burst across Io’s shoulder and elicited a yelp of pain.

Yuki Ichinose tried to force something out of her stunned throat in response. The loud, deafening snap of metal and splitting concrete however; shouted her out. The room sagged to the front, starting to tip again as cracks formed along the walls. Ichinose didn’t know what just happened, how Io just got hurt and yet was healing, but now wasn’t the time to waste moments speculating about what was out of her depth to discover. Many would harp on their shortcomings, but there wasn’t a luxury of time for that now. She wasn’t an expert on psychics or magic, there was only what she could offer and hope rather than despair at that.

A crackling shot across the ceiling, the foundations giving way without the telekinesis supporting them. Io surged forward and Yuki acted on impulse to embrace her. Looking over her shoulder, Ichinose could glimpse the battle as Godzilla threw his foe off him after it had latched onto his arm with fanged jaws.

-She’s feeling all of that.. And if she loses her focus the whole things coming down on top of us!-

Almost one hundred meters, straight down into the dark void.

Mind thinking at a mile a second, Ichinose crouched down and held Io’s face; wiping the tears off with her thumbs.

“Io, Io you gotta look at me!” She stammered, groping for ideas, “You gotta- um…”

The idea came to her in a stray thought. She couldn’t pin down where. She didn’t have kids, but it was a common enough nursery song she’d heard dozens of times. Maybe it was some very dim recollection from the last time she was in Kyoto, maybe it was just happenstance remembrance or generalized beats or specifics. But she took that leap of faith that it could possibly be what would save them.

“You ever listened to lullabies? You got those from your dad right?”

Io whimpered but nodded, chewing at her lip in wincing pains as the slash-mark bruising was beginning to fade.

“Then-” Yuki Ichinose panted, “Sing one along with me, I’ll do the tune.”

In truth, what she hummed was somewhat generic. Many nursery songs or lullabies had a similar melody and prose. Something meant to be nice, calm, and relaxing for the little ones. Ichinose hummed the melody, before opening her mouth and singing it in a coo. No lyrics in specific, just the right kind of melody for Io to latch onto.

“I-I can’t I-” Shinoda sniffled, shuddering across her back and closing her eyes as she gripped her head to cover her eyes. Additional bruising criss crossed her arms, coming and going in a dancing display.

Ichinose’s lullaby continued, the photographer pulling the quivering girl closer protectively; as if to shield her from the outside. Io shuddered and shook for several more moments, before putting her forehead to Yuki’s and letting the vibrations of her song echo through her mind and body. Her shaking stilled, even as a teardrop hit the floor. Ichinose patted her back assuringly, not stopping her tune.

“...B-beautiful dreamer…. wake unto me…”

Outside the room, Godzilla wrenched his arm out of Orga’s mouth; snapping off hooked fangs as he jerked free. The saurian gripped and wrenched out one of the overly long fangs still lodged inside the muscle, swung down and stabbed it into Orga’s gut. The tooth, coated in Godzilla’s blood, began to alter and warp the tissue with eruptions of irregular scales and growth slowly emanating from the puncture point.

“Starlight an-and dewdrops… are waiting for thee…”

The tooth was pulled into the body, biomass assimilated but only exacerbating the uncontrolled, cancerous growth. Godzilla’s eyes swiveled down to lock onto the happening, just as a partially blocked smack by Orga’s huge arm sent him tumbling through an apartment complex.

“Sounds of the rude world… heard in the day…”

Ichinose had never heard Io sing before. She was stuttering and the girl was no Peanuts, but she had some good pipes. Had to have them to sing in her condition and be putting up with Ichinose’s own horrible melody keeping. Warmth gripped her chest and she smiled in pride whilst continuing the tune.

“Lull'd by the mo-o-on-light… have all passed away…”

Orga body slammed the smaller kaiju, who braced for impact caught the incoming hammerblow by the wrist. A prehensile tail looped around and ensnared Orga’s elongated throat like a noose, yanking backwards and keeping the snapping jaws at bay. Wrenching another fang broken off in his arm, Godzilla swung it upwards and stabbed it through Orga’s lower jaw to impale the point into the roof of its mouth.

“Beautiful dre-eamer… queen of my song…”

Godzilla’s tail swung backwards, still wrapped around Orga’s neck. In tandem with the giant dragon’s kicking legs, Orga was flung off and bashed into the ground. It writhed and thrashed, still trying to grope for the fang impaling its jaws together with malformed, enormous fingers before resuming to absorb it. The cracks along the walls in the sole surviving room of CCI Tower started to shrink, the seams of split concrete and drywall pushed together by renewed telekinesis. The room stopped sagging, pushed back to level and held firmer and firmer by the moment.

“List while I woo thee… with soft me-mel-elody…”

Godzilla rose back up, lips curled into a snarl. Whilst facing the monstrosity, his great, burning eyes did turn aside to look towards the tower. As if sensing. As if knowing.

“Gone are the c-cares of life's busy throng..”

Io didn’t hear it, she was concentrating too much on the lullaby that simultaneously brought upon more tears but made her heart beat in a different way. Ichinose only glimpsed it because of where she was standing, back to the window and facing the door in the back of the room. It had clicked open. Yuki Ichinose’s eyes shot open.

“Beautiful dreamer… awake unto meee…”

Io whispered, finally managing a chord without stuttering whilst keeping her eyes closed.

Ichinose’s grip on her had tightened and something told Io she shouldn’t open her eyes. Yuki held the girl tighter protectively, eyes locked on what had just entered the room. For a split second she thought Yuji had made it. Her heart sunk into the depths, cold and bitter with fears and apprehension, as she recognized who- what it was. That uncanny, wide grin that had looked at her from another doorway. The downed but still partially functioning Garu-Garu growled quitely, detectiving evil. Belvera had missed one.

Ichinose sighed, keeping her breath and voice calm even as she stopped humming.

“Keep singing, just focus on that... Whatever you do, don’t.. Don’t turn around… not until I say so, can you do that?”

She felt Io’s hands grip her back and sleeves a bit tighter. Yuki closed her eyes briefly, steeling herself whilst feeling her pulse unified with Io’s. She patted the girl’s back assuring.

“Not until I say so... Will be a surprise... Okay?” Ichinose whispered, squeezing the girl just a bit for a moment before releasing.

The second passed, and Io let go of Yuki. She instinctively tilted her head down and focused, blocking out everything until she heard Ms. Ichinose’s voice again. Her brain still called that emotional imbecile “Ichinose” or “Yuki”, her heart thought something else for a moment.

“Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me…”

She had such a lovely singing voice, Yuki thought as she pulled away from the girl and stepped around her, trying to control her terrified breaths. Her hands spread as she tried to find anything within arm’s reach that could be a weapon.

The abomination that was a rape of Asuka Shinoda’s memory, the last remaining drone, grinned and stepped forward now that the last real opposition was gone with the fairy unconscious.

“Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea…”

The door sealed shut behind the drone, trapping them in with it.

=======================

Part 23

art by Zeroviks

art by FallenAngel5414

art by LordShrekzilla20

art by LionPatriot

Comments

[Godzillawolf]

We open to Katagiri is reacting to the situation from last chapter. He genuinely didn't mean to hurt Shinoda. I like the internal conflict there. He realizes that his fear was the origin of all the disaster that had transpired in the day.

He finally breaks free to help his friend as Orga is born.

Meanwhile, Gordon finds himself in the middle of the chaos as Junior charges into combat and finally engages Orga.

And Pentecost has a bit of a Godzilla 2014 moment which I like. I also like the indication Junior saved them intentionally.

Always enjoy seeing improvised weapons in a kaiju fight. Do enjoy the addition of Orga having a mouth beam as well as a shoulder cannon.

Io witnesses this and seems to feel a bit of pain in response to Junior's pain.

I do like that they realize Junior stopped his beam right in time to spare them, which causes Yuki have either a memory flash or something more that Junior had intentionally saved him.

However, they're interrupted when Orga arrives, and Belvera gets to show just how powerful she is by managing to block a finger from Orga. That's still managing to stop a freaking kaiju. That's something only the Princesses have done anything close to.

Orga makes it clear getting Io is the only thing it can think of, and Yuki is willing to risk her life for her. Belvera is helping, but even she is straining. As Yuki works hard to save her, with an internal injury of some sort. Orga is still coming for them. I do like that, but fortunately Belvera's magic and Io's telekinsis manages to get the room right side up. Belvera is drained, but her transfer spell boosts Io enough to pick up where she left off.

Do like the cute scene of Garu-Garu curling around Belvera.

Unfortunately, Orga is still here and trying to get in, but Yuki is able to keep her calm. I do like this because it highlights how terrifying it is to have a kaiju pursuing YOU Specifically.

Fortunately, Godzilla finally manages to get back in the fray and shoulder tosses Orga while also slicing Orga''s arm off with his spines. Both things I love seeing Godzilla do. I like Yuki realizing Junior is trying to protect Io as well.

But Orga is still Millennian, so it's arm goes full Thing and tries to attack him, but it gets knocked away...and causes Orga's own arm to not recognize Orga as itself. The hivemind is shattered.

Wat's left of the UFO returns to the fray and helps fight while also controlling the cables from below. It manages to temporarily knock Godzilla down so it can kill the limb and consume it. The hive mind has truly gone insane. It doesn't even recognize itself anymore..

We get a flashback to that night in 84 spurred by Katagiri hearing what was being screamed before.

Meanwhile, Katagiri is trying to protect and save Shinoda. Do like that this is showing the hidden goodness in Katagiri...and he admits he'd hated Godzilla for what they lost and knew Shinoda.This causes him to realize Godzilla is saving the day from the mess he himself caused...and finally admits the truth Junior was never a monster and he won't be anymore.

I really do like this as it has a very unique take on Katagiri that's still not contradicted by what we know in the movie.

He manages to revive Shinoda.

Meanwhile the battle with Orga continues, Junior managing to knock the UFO down with his tail before pinning it down and using Kyoto Tower as a weapon.

Meanwhile, Orga decides to just start throwing things. Well, when you have giant hands and strength, what else do you do?

It actually is rather effective, but fortunately very telegraphed. The sheer force of the throw is immense, but Godzilla is durable enough to tank...while pulling his best Legendary Goji and charges on all four. Love the Monster'Verse Godzilla references.

We see Junior's Nuclear Pulse blows for the first time and the fight gets brutal. Like the creativity, including Orga's desperation of having to shove Godzilla's head into its shoulder cannon...and then Junior just gets mad. Junior is too stubborn to quit. It's to the point for possibly the first time in Millennian's existence, it feels genuine fear.

Its regeneration is even more body horror than before, It's running on desperation by this point. I like that even though it can no longer emot verbally or mentally, it's clear it's continuing to have a villainous breakdown.

Meanwhile, Katagiri and Shinoda are making their way through the building...and it seems Katagiri has used most of the available medical supplies on Shinoda, not himself.

Katari shows his guilt and admits he nearly killed his daughter...but Shinoda refuses to fixate on that. Like the impending judgment day heading for them.

I like that Katagiri, a man ruled for decades by fear and hate, can't properly comprehend that Yuji could ever forgive him or want to help him after everything he'd done. I like the acknowledgement that Yuji was the better man than he was.

Also like that Katagiri's paranoia finally came in handy for the right cause. Also like the two still bickering kinda as old friend. Katagiri keeping an old ridiculous project they'd start.

I like the uncertainty of if Katagiri is making a heroic sacrifice or not.

Meanwhile they get to watch more of the Godzilla vs Orga fight and Junior continues to be intelligent. I do like Yuji now being able to see how Junior is actively protecting Io.

Meanwhile, we get the feeling that Katagiri isn't taking care of himself as he should be...and maybe has no intention of doing so.

As the battle continues, Io finds herself experiencing damage from Junior...and healing as well.

Yuki suddenly realizes the connection. Belvera did mention Io had become Junior's tether, and now we see what that means.

Unfortunately, Yuki can't focus on that, as she has to stop Io from losing her focus on telekinetically holding the entire place together.

I like the song overlaying with the brutality of the fight. And Peanuts reference. Hehe. Also do like Junior realizing his blood is still having a negative effect on him and starts using it against him.

Unfortunately, it's not Yuji that reaches them, but the sole surviving Millennian drone. The one that's a twisted mockery of Io's mother. Question is if with the hive mind shattered is this thing really working with Orga anymore?

On to part 2!

[Temnizziv]

Will lay out my thoughts on the finale each part at a time to not overwhelm myself.

I like Katagiri's thought process in the first scene. How he tries to initially rationalize it before he decides not to excuse himself, and make a turnaround.

The 2014 moment with Pentecost was a nice touch to how the human characters start seeing Junior.

The Junior vs Orga fight was the most anticipated event of New Era, and it does not disappoint here. Personal highlight in this part was the visual of Orga pulling a Beast Titan on Junior.

The scenes with Yuki & Io are appropriately tense here.

The dynamic between Katagiri & Yuji reconciling at the end was enjoyable to read.

That's it for general thoughts on Part 1.

[FallenAngel2012]

Getting my thoughts out for this part 1 of the finale. Tried to figure out what was happening in the battle, from what I can tell Orga is creepy bitch. The UFO is still kicking. Junior is trying his best here, and poor Io is getting hurt because of it. Like the moment between Shinoda and Katagiri. Once friends before then to bitter enemies then being actual friends again. It was nice. And that Faker Asuka clone is back! Yuki kick her ass!