When King Ghidorah attacks Earth, old enemies must become allies in order to save the world they both love.
Prologue
In the year 2018. From the sky will come the great King of Terror. Skull Island’s barbaric god bared his broken teeth at his enemies and roared across the chasm at the humans who would trespass on his lands. They all screamed when the enormous silverback gorilla, nearly thirty feet tall, reared his gargantuan sooty bulk up on his hind legs and beat his breast with his giant hands… yet while the ape saw that the humans men who yet clung to the gorge spanning tree were terrified, he saw that they had not retreated. They were here to steal Luke… he knew it! Kong had been content to let them leave with their lives but if they would not flee he would destroy them all!
Kong slammed his fists into the mossy ground and moved to the rotten log that strange humans were on. For said humans, they were filled with a sick realization of what was about to happen. Some disobeyed the eternal advice and looked down, much to their chagrin as they saw that the canyon below them was filled with just as many giant spider-like… things! That and the monster lizards and those octopus looking insects! As one man vomited, it wasn’t from the rank decay of the bone-yard below. Then, as if to snap them from his grim reverie, they felt their already queasy stomachs lurch as they were heaved upwards. King Kong had rallied all his gigantic power and might to heave the mossy, vine-laden log from side to side! The monster increased this swinging to a fever pitch and already one more man lost his grip and fell to his death. Another almost lost his balance though he clung to a vine, tearing open another man’s cheek with bloody gashes as he desperately tried to hold on. The King of Skull Island shaking the log from side to side, the slipping sailor lost his grip and after a jarring thud managed to hold on only by a strong vine. It was then that another man cast like a fallen angel unto the hellish depths. Who was it? Mike Hamson didn’t know. He’d been the only one to get to safety in time; he was hiding in a ledge sticking from the cliff wall and ten or fifteen feet below the edge. He was safe and that was all the worse as he saw his friends were not. He was unable to look and turned away in horror before looking ten feet straight up to impotently shake his fist at the monster that had done this. He saw another man shaken from the log and fall to the bottom of the gorge… where he was eaten alive by the monsters of the hellspawn island. Hamson then saw that one of the men still clinging to the log; it was to no avail as the men were cast off like flies. He saw this and slammed his fist to the ground. How long he was like that, he did not know but soon he saw every last man, save one, had been hurled to his death.
He looked as much as his eyes could but couldn’t see who it was. Hamson felt a wellspring of hope in that man might be able to escape with his life… and Kong roared and beat his chest in anger at the fact that the man would not fall! The beast in his great anger gripped the log in all his tremendous strength, heaving it up and up before he lifted it all up and threw it all down! As for the one sailor stuck on the log, he screamed all the way down, wishing that he hadn’t stuck on the log. Hamson swore. If that hideous brute did that to those men, heaven knew what it had done to his Luke. His Luke…Mike couldn’t believe any of this, a gigantic monster ape and a lost civilization that worshiped it? Had the world gone crazy? Not even the Lost World had things like this. Oh, how Hamson wished that this hellish island would just burn to cinders! The man fought to regain control of himself and forced himself to look upwards to where the monster ape stood and saw that it was gone. Then a giant hairy paw appeared out of nowhere to grab him! Mike slammed himself against the edge of the cave wall in shock. He quickly whipped out a knife and began stabbing at the fingers groping towards him…
As to where Luke was at that moment he was sweaty, filthy, covered in insect bites, scraped, bruised, and clinging for dear life atop a tree branch. As for how he was feeling, he was scared as hell. he was going to kill Mikey Hamson for bringing his to this Godforsaken place… he was going to kill him then bring him back to life so he could kill him again! How could this even be happening? he began to shake uncontrollably even as tears carved streaks through the thick grime on his face. Things like this they didn’t happen in real life, not today in 2018! Luke kept telling himself that he’d just wake up and find out that all this was just a dream. he shook his head and hoped that he would just wake up and find he was back in Tampa, looking for a better job or something to eat. Why did he have to take that stupid job?! he should taken the job as a teacher! he tried to get down from the tree that giant gorilla monster had placed his, the natives had called it Kong or something? Oh for the love of Mike… that animal was coming to eat his, going to…
he blotted it out of his mind. he didn’t even dare think it.
Though sick and shaking, the filthy, rag-clad Luke took a few wobbly steps towards the edge of the tree branches. he didn’t know what he was going to do, he just knew he had to get away. Yet it was as he was grasping the branches to get down that he heard a sinister reptilian growl. he whipped his head around and saw an enormous killer dinosaur! With that Luke screamed, he screamed for his life!
At the gorge, the roaring Kong ceased his bellowing when he heard that; he shot upwards and turned his head. He listened as best he could and heard his scream and the rasping hiss of… him! Luke was in danger, he had to go help his! With that, Kong looked down over the gorge on whose edge he was on his hands and knees and roared at the human hiding just past his grasp. He roared, bared his teeth, and pounded the ground and he swiped his hand as if to say, “And STAY away human!”
With that, the giant ape wheeled around to drop on his hands and knuckles and charged as fast he could towards the clearing where he had left Luke. He vaulted a log and soon enough the clearing was in view.
A dinosaur some might think a Tyrannosaurus Rex locked its ravenous eyes on the pasty-faced shaved ape and felt curious. Hailed as a king by the V-Rexes, three-fingered descendants of the tyrannosaurs, and worshiped as a god by the Venatosaurus raptors, this thirty-foot carnosaur was the pinnacle of this evolution, dwarfing any Spinosaurus and especially any Allosaur on the island. Its species was called Godzillasaurus and it was the ultimate tyrant king.
The flesh-eater had been following the hated Kong for days, sending his pack mates to exhaust it, taunt it, so that now he could come and kill him. Skull Island was the last bastion of a saurian rule and its king could not be some deformed rodent spawn whose ancestors should have stayed in their burrows, no. Kong had killed Gaw, the rightful Queen of Skull Island whose minions had destroyed the cities that the shaved apes had dared to build on. The saurian goddess herself had killed Kong’s parents and had almost killed Kong himself. Godzillasaurus bared his fangs at the thought of it. he would have been his mate…
Was it not enough that the apes had the entire world? Would they take even Skull Island? No, they had no place these! As Gaw had been Queen of the Raptors, so he had become their King, protecting them from Kong and uniting them against the dirty warm blood. Once Kong was dead, his fellow apes would be helpless… that made the shaved ape atop the tree all the more interesting.
Trees brushed against Godzillasaurus’ sides as he left the sweltering jungle and walked into the cool of the clearing. He cradled his small, three-fingered arms against his spine backed self and closed in, circling the tree on his colossal, pillar-like legs. The leaf litter on the rainforest floor did little to lessen the thunder of his steps. The shape’s hideous crying grew even louder and he thundered near his.
Curled atop the bough, the whimpering he-ape saw this and curled into a little ball. Godzillasaurus was puzzled by this and he ignored him as he ran his ten-foot long skull over his tiny body and took in his scent. Th then snorted and blasted his rank carrion breath in anger over his trembling form; Kong stink was all over his! The small apes on the island must have given him to the king ape as some kind of sacrifice. He was going to have to get Kong’s attention and what better way than to eat his precious little toy?!
He threw back his head and roared.
SKREEEOONK!
Baring his double row of railroad spike fangs, Godzillasaurus lunged forwards to devour Luke Hamson when the air was shattered by the ape’s snarl as it leaped into the clearing, slamming his gargantuan fists on the ground to make it tremble. Yes… the Tyrant King knew it was time and began circling, roaring defiance to the only enemy on Earth strong enough to challenge him: King Kong.
Kong moved slowly and threw a colossal hairy fist in anger even as the others made a mock lunge, each to see of the others would back down. Neither would, neither could, for both were kings and were too proud to surrender. It was then that Godzillasaurus lunged to bite his foe and his enemy dodged to the side and thus the saurian left his side open. Then the gargantuan Kong, filled with righteous wrath, circled around Godzillasaurus like lightning and leaped on his back! He threw his long gorilla arms around his foe’s neck as if were some wrestler grabbing a foe in a headlock. The Tyrant King shook and twisted as much as he could and tried to move his rending tearing jaws in order to slaughter his enemy but was unable to; the gorilla’s grip kept him from turning his head.
Godzillasaurus, however, managed to throw his simian foe from his back and the giant gorilla fell to the ground. Kong was sore all over having been rubbed raw from the spines on the dinosaur’s back. On seeing the saurian charge him with the utmost velocity, he hurriedly propped himself up but he saw it was not fast enough as the dinosaur clamped a double row of septic dagger fangs straight through the hairy flesh of his forearm. Kong roared at the pain, the burning, red-hot pain!
At that, he slammed a foot on his foe’s chest and tore at one arm with serrated teeth even as the other arm of the roaring beast pushed against his head. Even so, though sprawled on his back, Kong summoned reserves of inconceivable strength to tear his arm free from his jaws. He rolled away on the rainforest leaf litter and spared a glance at his lacerated arm. Oddly though, it wasn’t bleeding. The fur had been completely singed the wound was cauterized. It was as if it had been burned with fire… Kong looked up and wondered at the monster he was dealing with.
The saurian had drawn first blood but the mammal was far from beaten. The three-story-tall land shark was determined to finish what he’d started and lunged with gaping jaws again and again but Kong had seen this and ducked and dodged the hideous maw. He returned the attack with a tremendous, jaw breaking left hook that sent Godzillasaurus reeling back; the follow up right hook only hit air though. The two beasts then charged each other and crashed like two tanks slamming into each other, Kong holding his foe in a head block, and that enemy edging his razor blade jaws, ripping open the ape’s back and snarling all the while.
Barely able to keep from fainting, Luke saw all this and saw the two beasts disengage, Kong taking a few steps back. With bruised and bleeding jaws, Godzillasaurus lunged to bite but the mammal pulled back, raising an arm to protect himself. It was then that the saurian rushed him but his enemy raised his tree trunk arms to seemingly strike the foe. But it was not so for the beast god ducked down and grabbed his enemy by a raised leg, summoning his power to pull out his scaly legs from under him. Godzillasaurus had fallen like a ten ton stone and was on his back. Before he could react, the spawn of the rodent gods crashed his mammoth iron fists against his body again and again. Godzillasaurus roared and twisted on the dank, muddy ground as blow after blow was rained on him. He felt his ribs being broken by the insane, roaring, gorilla god. Flailing on his back, the tyrannosaurus shot a taloned, impossibly muscled leg underneath the simian and cast him aside like a rag doll. Kong was temporarily stunned by the blow and unable to move. As for the muddied, bloodied Godzillasaurus, he was in a quandary for he knew he could escape and get to safety. Indeed, logic decreed that he do so with the injuries he had sustained; welts, broken ribs, and more bruises than could be counted. If he did, he knew Kong would not stop him since he was also injured and would welcome the chance to recover his strength.
But if he did, where would be his honor? The carnosaurs had already fought and bled for him against the mammal. They called him king and what kind of a king cowered behind his minions? With that, he turned around to face the ape and saw him. They had fought many-a-time before. This wasn’t the first time they had fought and but it would surely be the last.
SKREEEOONK!
That was when Kong finally forced himself up, at last taking the chance to remove the serrated teeth that the lizard had embedded in his arms at the start of the fight. He saw his torn gouged arms and the blood-soaked fur that covered them both. He touched his torn and bloodied belly; it was scraped and torn apart in three ugly rows. He also saw at that, that Godzillasaurus was still there, fangs bared, twitching his tail, and still waiting to finish the fight. The Skull Islander’s god looked at the reptile and saw an abortion, a freak that should never have existed and should have died a million years ago. He saw every Rex, every Allosaurus, every Raptor, every Spinosaurus who had spilled a kong’s blood, spilled the blood of his troop, of his family leaving him the last. No Kong would not back down, he would not back down for anything! Filled with rage, Kong threw his head back and beat his chest with both fists. They would fight and now it would be to the death.
Before anyone could realize it, the two had charged each other and were tearing into each other like rabid raptors. But Godzillasaurus broke away and lowered his skull to deliver a charging ram head blow that sent Kong reeling back. But that also sent him crashing back towards the tree where Luke clung, sending it crashing down. Enraged, his erstwhile protector picked up a nearby boulder and hurled it at his enemy. He took the precious seconds he had purchased and scrambled to the tree, tearing aside branches to see if his tiny bride was alright. To his relief, he was alive, staggered but alive.
He looked at him and saw for the first time something other than fear in his eyes. he looked at him in silence before screaming and pointing behind him. Kong spun around and saw that the groggy carnosaur was struggling back up. Luke looked at one monster and then the others before slowly walking back towards Kong. He saw his move behind him and then looked back towards his enemy. If Luke was safe, let it end then.
Kong rushed forwards and grabbed his foe in a headlock. He held the reptile’s neck with the simian arm, his jaws shut with another, all the while biting the reptile’s cheek and forcing him down to the ground with his weight. Wrestling on the ground, Godzillasaurus’ nevertheless managed to throw off the beast but before he even got up, Kong had already mounted his spiny back one more! Weakened by the fierce fight, the saurian wobbled underneath all the weight; he bucked and threw his body as wildly as he could but to no avail.
It was uncertain what Kong had in mind but it became grisly clear when he thrust his massive paws into the Godzillasaurus’ maw and pulled apart with all his might! Hearing his very bones crack, the Tyrant King threw himself down to dislodge Kong but it was only temporary because as quick as lightning the ape was up on his feet trying to tear apart the jaws of the reptile. Though on his back, the Godzillasaurus could not, would not, give up! He summoned all his strength to clamp his jaws his jaws shut and bite off the filthy ape’s paws! He tore his head loose but that was when his foe dealt an eye blackening uppercut. It was a contest to see who was the one true king, who would rule! Kong choked back a scream as his hands were shredded by the meat grinder but he would not yield an inch and bit by bit as blood spurted out from the writhing saurian’s jaws, they were pulled apart. Each fought to the bitter end but in one final push, the King of Skull Island tore open Godzillasaurus’ jaws in a sickening, bloody crunch that made the saurian spasm and scream… before going limp. The exhausted Kong collapsed on his knuckles, barely able to keep from falling. His chest was heaving and for that he would brook no chances; his enemy seemed dead but he had to be sure. The simian colossus moved the hated reptile’s jaws; no reaction. He picked up its head and let it fall to the ground; no reaction. It was dead. Had to be…He grunted. He grunted and then threw himself up growled. He threw his head back and roared for all his might, beating his chest all the while so that all would that Kong and Kong alone was king!
The roar echoed across the whole of Skull Island making the pterosaurs fly away in frightened flocks. The V-Rexes and the Venatosaurus stopped whatever it was they were doing in fear and stupefaction. It could not be… not their king…At the gorge where Kong had cast so many to their deaths, two were still alive. The injured Mike Hamson climbed up the edge where he was greeted by Mikey Hamson from across the other side. Though each was glad that the other was still alive, there was still the issue of finding Luke Hamson. Mike said he would continue and try to find his while Hamson tried to dissuade him. It was to no avail as Hamson ran after Kong. He went through the boot-sucking mud and the dense ferns and vines and mosses, all the while sweltering under the dank and humid heat. In short order he came to a large clearing and was shocked at the utter destruction across it. It looked like the battlefields, like the trench-scarred No-Man’s Lands from the World War. Hamson looked away and in the distance saw Kong through the trees, carrying Luke in his hand like a doll to his mountain. He kept walking and was shocked by what he saw. What he saw was the dying Godzillasaurus. He saw the dinosaur’s broken chest heaving and copious blood pouring from a shattered jaw to a form an obscene crimson halo. The carrion birds were already circling but human scared them away. Godzillasaurus was to weak to even growl at this. As if it was not enough that a hairy ape had to do this, a shaved ape had to see it…Though nearly broken and mind muddled by all this, the Tyrant King was as yet not dead. His trembling chest still moved and fire of his rage still burned. More than anything else, it was self loathing with how he had failed to defeat Kong and in doing so had failed to protect the dinosaurs who had come to look to him as their champion. All Godzillasaurus had left now was revenge and he knew that no matter what it took, not if it took a million years, he would have his revenge on Kong. No, it was not over. This wasn’t defeat at the “hands” of King Ghidorah, because he would rise again and take his revenge. No matter what it took, not if it took another 65,000,000 years, he would have his revenge on Kong and all the other apes. He would live and reclaim all his power. He would breath fire on them and destroy their shining towers… He would trample their cities to dust… No ape deserved to live. Yes, he and Kong had fought before and they would fight again… and again and again. It would never end!
King Kong vs. Godzilla… it would not end, not until the battle from which the only one would walk away alive. As for Mike Hamson, all he knew while walking past the dying Godzillasaurus was that nobody in Tampa would ever believe it.
As revealed in our prequel (we haven’t written that yet bro!), King Ghidorah killed the dinosaurs and Godzilla, one of the lone survivors, wants payback now that the three-headed monster returns. Godzilla, however, won’t fight alone as an army of men and monsters will come together to save their world our next book. All I can say is, Godzilla AND King Kong? Ghidorah better run!
Chapter One
“How long will we be stuck in traffic?” asked Melvin. The chauffeur, Sharon by name, spared a glance. “It’s going to be a while, sir. You might be the Secretary-General of the US but that doesn’t mean you get a police escort.” He snorted. “So I’m not as relevant like the President?” The young woman looked at his employer through his rearview mirror and gave a smile. “Well, if it’s any help I voted for the other guy.” Darren allowed himself a smile. “Thanks.” “But seriously,” added his tone-deaf chauffeur, “you can’t really expect to say it’s the end of the world and with evidence to prove it and not expect Manhattan to turn into a gridlocked powder keg. I mean” Sharon obliviously continued, “you say this King Ghidorah thing is going to kill planet Earth and of course people are going to nuts. Man we’re going to be lucky get to your house in Sutton Place by midnight at this rate! Darren frowned. “Again, thanks.” The poor, exhausted man let himself sprawled in the back seat and just hoped that the migraine would go away. He had been in meetings all day, even after the main security briefing, and had spoken to prime ministers, presidents, and kings on what it was they were going to face and how he was going to need everybody’s help. Secretary-General Darren thought about this and as he did, the same thought kept boiling over and over in his head. WHY HIM!? America had had the kaiju under control, G-Force kept Godzilla at a stalemate, Elon Musk and his Mars Base crew kept them contained on the red planet, and the Martians were friends now. He ran for office sure that the crazy things, the days with clockwork doomsdays were over, sure that he’d be the Secretary-General with time on his hands, the Secretary-General who’d be nothing but a debate monitor. And now he was not only faced with this but had to play war hero? Just thinking of it made him feel scummy all over and reached up to the light at the roof of the limo as he pulled down a small mirror. He was sweaty, his eyes looked bloodshot, his tie was undone, and it seemed as if there were a few more wrinkles around his eyes and a few more white hairs on his sideburns. He knew he was going to have to do his job, he knew it was his duty but why couldn’t it have gone to anybody else? As he slouched in his seat he all of a sudden began laughing. “…Live and let die.” Darren laughed and reached into the tiny refrigerator at his side. “What was that, sir?” The man poured himself some soda and turned to the front of the car in the dimly lit alley he was in. He smirked and told the chauffeur, “Nothing Sharon. It’s just that I was thinking, God why did I have to get my job now of all times, couldn’t anybody else carry this cross? Then I realized His own boy said the same thing. Look where it got him.”
The driver bit his lip to keep from laughing. Ignoring it and concentrating on the task at hand, he said, “You know, sir, I’m not your mother or anything but you know that if you need somebody to talk to you can talk to me.”
Darren calmed his nerves and laughed. ” I’ll make it.”
Sharon nodded as he tipped his cap. “Whatever you say, sir.”
Sometime later, he finally drove into the Secretary General’s swank neighborhood. Darren got his briefcase and bid his a good night as he walked into his brownstone. He rubbed the exhaustion out of his eyes and forced himself to trudge towards the main stairway. He took a brief glance at the very large main sitting room; he’d been hoping to finish redecorating. There were things like a picture of the Virgin and Pope John Paul kissing his hand, a large crucifix, a framed picture of Robin Hood in the common picture. It had been a gift from his father-in-law; Darren had always leaned more towards the more idealistic Martin Luther King, Jr. He had a picture of the civil rights leader, the one taken during his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. He saw the picture of his son graduating from basic training and of his own picture graduating from the university. The mementos seemed almost meaningless right now. That was when he heard a door open up on the second floor and saw a woman clutching a rosary hurry towards the top of the stairway. “Melvin, are you there?” “Yes, I’m right here.” The man put his briefcase down and placed his hand on the stair rail and looked up to his wife as he ran down to where he was and threw his arms around him. he held him tight and placed his cheek against his. “Oh Melvin, I was so worried about you!” Darren smiled and kissed him on the forehead. “And I told you not to wait up for me Sharon… and I’m glad you didn’t.” With that, he kissed him on the mouth. Feeling as good wrapped in his man’s arms now as when he first met him, Sharon snuggled against him. “Melvin, you’ve had a long day so come to bed.” He rolled his eyes and tilted his head back. “You have no idea how much I want to hear that.” Husband and wife began walking up the stairs to their bedroom when wife asked, “Melvin, and little Christopher?” That son of ours has already gotten his orders. He’s taking the next flight back to Japan to train in that robot in about two days.” Sharon bit her lip and fought a tear. “My son… He’s not going to fight Godzilla in that thing anymore. He’s going to fight that Ghidra… or whatever it is.” “King Ghidorah and even though I can’t legally tell you this, yes.” Sharon hung her head. “So this is how my grandmother felt about my father signing up for the army…” The two reached their unlit bedroom and closed the door behind them. “Well,” said Melvin, “we just have to accept our son is a man and let ourselves be proud of him.” His wife said, “That’s true…” Now alone in the bedroom with his wife, he began to take off his clothes, throwing them on the floor. Sharon smiled when he took off his clothes and began kissing his exposed flesh. his bosom began heaving in anticipation. he gasped when he kissed the nape of his neck. he wanted so badly to just forget his fear and give in to the pleasure but… “Melvin, I have to ask you something.” “What is it?” he nervously asked. he was quiet for a time and wasn’t sure what to say. he fiddled with the heat and forced himself to speak. “Melvin… early today you gave that speech. You said ‘we can work together or we can die.’ You’re not serious, are you?” Melvin turned away and in his hands clutched a crucifix he had worn since his boyhood. “Sharon, let’s forget that for now.” He held his wife so hard it hurt him. Sharon gasped when he felt that… and when she saw his husband’s tears. “I just want you right now and enjoy ourselves. Let’s just have some fun!”
At that very moment, on a secret island that even in modern times with all its spy satellites and its mapping, was a land forgotten by the outside world. In fact, it was forgotten by time itself, an isle of the skull it was known. It was a tropical island that shouldn’t exist but did and that should never be, but was. It was the last remnant of a once mighty civilization, like Hawaii; but unlike the kindly, gentle place, it was home to barbarians. It was dusk and in the main village at the edge of the gigantic monolithic wall, people were at their businesses and waiting for the feast that would soon come. Atop of the wall, near where the legendary storyteller kept his hut, the lookouts standing on it saw deep into their island’s interior. Almost hidden, but not quite from peering eyes, was a hunting party dragging a dinosaur on a hastily built sled. Those with keener eyes could see how the island spread out for hundreds of square miles in all directions. Those eyes could see the remains of the Old City and its Citadel in the distance, the grand lake and the swamps and rivers; the rolling grasslands, the jagged shards of land like broken pottery that erupted everywhere. The tar-pits, the great spider gorges that neatly divided the island, the cliffs it led to and the sea past it, and with it the outlying islands and their own respective jungles and lands that formed an archipelago around the main island. But dominating them all where the mountain ranges on the big island and engulfing them, shrouded in cloud and mist, was Skull Mountain itself where the savage God of the island slept. The colossal mountain was there before them, and lightning struck and thunder sounded around it and just as soon as this happened, the land shook with the cry of Kong. As the roar of the blast echoed across the various lands of the island, the birds and the pterodactyls and the flying rats took cover in fear of their king. They were not the only ones afraid.
On the colossal sixty foot high stone wall, a lookout gripped their stone spears and dinosaur shields as they heard this. They looked at each other but did not dare let themselves show fear.
“And yet you’re afraid.” He didn’t bother to turn around; he knew that it was Manny the wise. he was the Cape Verdean king and would long since passed away had Kong not spared his life and accepted him. He looked at the man’s back as he kept watching for any signs of danger. “Child, I’ve known you since you we were a baby, listening to the storyteller’s tales on his knee. You can not fool me.” The boy growled. He’d been angry the entire day. He was angry that the damaged roof of his hut had been letting in rain, angry that injuries from an earlier hunt had left him incapacitated, and angry that he was stuck with lookout duty while his brothers could go hunt. With the mood he was in, he was upset at how anyone in the tribe dared talk like that to him, even if it was the King. All he could do was hide his feelings and tell him, “There are few who do not fear the wrath of Kong.”
The King smiled and leaned at the edge of the Wall, looking into the fading red glow of sunset and feeling the wind blow around his body, his chest heaved as he remembered. “No, only cowards fear our God, for He despises the weak and favors the strong; the bold have no fear of Him nor should they. My friend, have you seen the hunting party?”Angry at the insinuation of his being a coward, he nodded. “Venerable youth, they have been seen and we were just about to sound the cry.” The young man braced himself against his spear, its raptor claw blade scraping the stone floor. Smiling as he shuddered, the King said, “Well then, don’t let me stop you.” The lookout nodded and looked down over the edge of the Wall to the faraway men at the base of the towering man-made cliff.
He cried out for everyone to open the Gates. On hearing that, the Wall men heaved and puffed to pull back the gigantic bolts and tugged the massive Gates. The warriors had been armed with spears and arrows and stood ready for anything. Soon enough the hunting party came through into the village and on seeing this, the King came in. He called for the dozens of villagers to rush towards the exhausted hunters to take the ropes and relieve them of their burden. It happened with the warriors both in front of the gates and atop the wall, not letting their aims waver until the portal was closed. It was then and only then, that rising stones as high as a mighty cliff were braced shut by timbers as mighty as the oldest trees, that they let themselves rest.
Soon enough the hungry and happy tribesmen began pouring in and every last fighter brought his bloody tools to eagerly go to work. Some women came out and hung their heads in mute misery on seeing that their men had not returned. Regardless, they were in the minority for under the watchful eye of their King, the people were happy about seeing so much food, secure in the knowledge that they would not be hungry. The King declared a celebration and sent for the storyteller to come and regale them with tales of old. As all this happened, a few people began to notice that the skies were becoming prematurely dark and that everything seemed to go gray. When the full cost of the hunt was told, the people would say that the odd skies were a bad omen. The storyteller knew better for he saw all this on the wall and felt fear.
The wrinkled old man barely acknowledged the men that came for him. He went to the satchel he had left on the ground and rummaged a crude stone figurine of a three-headed thing. He was afraid because he remembered a time when he had been called not a storyteller, but Nicholas, and had been the apprentice to the storyteller before his, Joshua. He had been born on Skull Island but it was Kong that rescued him and his people from the outsiders who had enslaved them. He knew who it was Kong that he and his people would worship. He also knew that it was Kong who had defeated the three-headed monster in the days of old. He turned his head to Skull Mountain where King Kong made his lair and said that if the day should come once again, that he stands alongside the monster once again.
While the cat’s away, the mice will play.
Doesn’t matter who came up with it, it’s true. When dark times come people are afraid and do what must be done that in time they grow careless and forget. That’s what happened on a global scale. The world was on high alert and kept all eyes open when King Ghidorah first arrived but when Godzilla fought the demon to a draw on Skull Island and drove it away, people grew lazy. Though world leaders warned their peoples that the three-headed monster could strike at any times, it was hard pressed to keep a population of billions ready when there was no tangible evidence of danger. Despite the initial fear that was felt when the demon showed his hideous face, they began to ask was it even already over? Far from it because King Ghidorah was not defeated but was only marshaling his strength for another, even greater attack.
In a week or two immediately after his battle with Godzilla, the robots had gone to space to circle the sun and absorb its golden rays into their artificial skin. His open pseudo-flesh had been closing and his broken components were exposed. Reprogramming himself, he felt now it was time for him to leave and finish what he began. Sailing through the inky, frozen, star-studded, blackness of space in an endless circle above the roiling cauldron, the lake of fire, that was the sun, he was covered in red light. His twin tails twisted and writhed behind him and his wings were outstretched and King Ghidorah looked down at the writhing, infinite inferno as it shot out mile high gouts of white-hot flame.
For a time the robot, whom people called the devil’s hammer, dove down into the red and yellow atmosphere and shot in and out between the solar prominences—giant plumes of burning gas—for no other reason than pleasure. The idea that the three-headed monster was capable of feeling true joy was seemingly absurd with his mechanical nature, but there it was. Then, all of a sudden, illuminated salt white from below and silhouetted jet black from above, King Ghidorah flew increasingly faster, accelerating every second, and leaving a trail of fire behind him. Then all of a sudden, the evil one shot into a ninety degree turn and rocketed straight upwards in a column of fire into the darkness of space.
He flew away from the sun and towards the Earth uttering a cry of madness so terrible that even there was no air to carry it, it could still be heard.
It was at the bottom of the sea, therefore it was the deepest of all deeps. It was an underwater canyon tens of thousands of feet deep. The weight of the sea and of the land was so great that the Earth’s skin was split at the bottom of it, allowing the Earth to bleed the lava that came from inside. It was here that the fiercest fire touched the coldest water and left the ocean boiling. This strange place was at the bottom of what men would call the Bottomless Trench, the deepest place in the world, and it was here, where liquid darkness was illuminated with a river of liquid flame that flowed at the bottom of the canyon that one King of the Monsters was found.
The sea was his domain and there was not one part of it that he did not know of. He had swum the width and breadth of the seas and had walked the bottom on the desert plains and had learned which continents clashed. He was glad to know that this was one place that hadn’t changed during his sleep of ages, and that volcanic trenches of the continents that were pulled apart were still able to heal. It was something he had learned from Titanosaurus. Find the place underwater where there is fire and you will be healed. Thus he had searched and had found.
Godzilla swam in the darkness using sight beyond sight for if he were to use his eyes, even with membranes to protect them from salt, he would go blind from the contrast between light and dark. The frozen dark water was around him and it was soothing. The beast would need his wounds closed so that he might do battle, and so he dove straight down through the murky, ink black water. He dove deeper, ever deeper, with the massive walls of the aquatic canyon that flanked either side of him making even he look small, as small as a human. With his plates steadying him like a shark’s fin, the bubbles went by him as his crocodile tail switched from side to side, propelling him ever deeper and ever closer to the light below. Whatever he was going to do he would have to do it fast because as vast as they were, his lungs were fit to burst.
Soon enough the lava river made everything glow an eerie red and the water boil like madness. It was into this cauldron that Godzilla swam and he was bathed in red from the lava that poured from the Earth and made the water roil and steam like a kettle. The King of the Monsters swam into the torrent of boiling water and even skimmed through the lava at the bottom, feeling its burning heat cauterize his remaining wounds and the special minerals seep into him to keep the wounds closed. Godzilla felt pain at this but he ignored it and plunged deeper into the red glowing fire and buried himself in it. For a time there was nothing, no sound no movement. That was when Godzilla erupted out of the lava river and swam upwards with spines glowing and roaring his mighty roar so that the whole ocean shook.
He was ready for battle. He would find Ghidorah and have his revenge.
Chapter Two
There was the televised image of President Trump as he walked his Chihuahua Gino on the White House lawn. It was a daily practice but what wasn’t daily was a raging wave of protesters on Pennsylvania Avenue crowding madly against the uniformed policemen and the high fence behind them. It utterly dwarfed the protest march going on as the people there, fifteen deep, spewed curses and held signs that read “Damn you!” and “Murderer!” Their anger only grew more virulent with how Trump deliberately egged on protesters, despite his exasperated staff’s explicit advice. They had said that he should stay out of public sight while tempers calmed down but instead he was there in full view, walking the dog, and waving at everyone screaming for blood.
They hated him for having released the monster called King Ghidorah who, the Secretary-General had told them, “is a demon seeking to scour the Earth of life and who indeed has the power to do it. A far cry from the space monsters we have faced before, like Dogora and Yog. Credible sources have assured me that he is a space monster that has already killed entire worlds; that was why his last victims sought to imprison him in a vault. Their hope was that the vault might never be opened. Yet it was.”
Yes, it had been opened and before them was the man who had pushed the button. All of a sudden, a lone gunman surged past the crowd and opened fire on Trump. The protesters screamed and panicked but the riot police rushed the would-be assassin and clubbed him into submission. The scene froze at the sight of President Trump cowering on the ground and the camera pulled back to show James Lawrence, TV anchorman for Tampa Bay News.
“Hello everybody, I’m James Lawrence and the top story of the hour is the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump. It began when a mob of protesters besieged the White House to denounce the President for having opened the vault that contained the monster called King Ghidorah. While Ghidorah has vanished for the moment his threat is still present and it should not be discounted, especially by those who had doubted he even existed in the first place… such as I.
“As for the President he is unharmed and the gunman, who has been identified is now in prison and awaiting trial. More on this case as it develops.”
Johnny DoVale tried to wipe the sweat off his forehead and cursed himself for forgetting that he was in a Hazmat suit to protect from the radiation and infectious agents. He’d been working for several hours now on poisons and toxins and all sorts of things to make a man sick. You see, despite the arrival of King Ghidorah, Project Toxin was still in effect and until he received his orders to the contrary, Johnny would keep at his work.
He looked at the monitor showing what looked like a twisted ladder and thought about the idiotic militarists and about they had gone about it all wrong. Guns, tanks, bombs, no matter what they did, no matter what they tried, Godzilla still lived. The firepower of any kind or magnitude was definitely not the answer. Johnny knew that everyone knew that, but the question was why?
Though he liked to imagine he had a fair amount of poetry in his soul, Johnny was a scientist and a scientist has to have proof. Not persuaded by claims that Godzilla was some kind of divine punishment and was thus immortal, he’d looked elsewhere. At that, Johnny smiled remembering the crazy tone in his cousin’s voice when he called and said that someone had cracked Godzilla’s genetic code. Other scientists had gone through who knows how many sleepless nights of experimenting on pieces of flesh that had been recovered from the 1985 battle with a Super-X Attack Plane. and more importantly on the genetic bases of thymine, cytosine, guanine, and adenine but it had been worth it.
To the uninitiated, it might seem strange that a simple combination of phosphates and sugars could yield so much joy. Done reminiscing, Johnny looked at the small piece of Godzilla flesh that had been acquired after his battle with King Ghidorah back on Skull Island-one of many with the carnage of it. With a surgeon’s skill and with great difficulty with the suit, he took a tiny strip and placed it on a slide to be seen underneath the electron microscope; he looked through the device and increased the magnification a further tenfold. At that degree, Johnny could see individual cells, cells still alive and still carrying on their functions even now…though not for long. Turning away from the microscope he picked up his tools and looked to a small Petri dish, whose contents were stirring. He had used it to grow some viral cultures and that was perfectly routine work but what wasn’t routine was what was being grown. After taking the top from the dish with gloved hands, he used needles finer than human hairs to extract some samples of the virus and placed them on the slide with the Godzilla cells. Looking through the microscope, it was as Johnny suspected. Despite their ugly power to corrupt DNA, the virus was in seconds destroyed by white blood cells that seemed to duplicate themselves at an insane rate. As for any damaged cells, they seemed to recreate themselves as their processes for reconstruction accelerated to several times their normal speed.
Johnny looked to the screen at his side and saw that radiation levels in the strip of cells had dropped; it was because the radiation had been used to aid the healing process. The young scientist had just witnessed Godzilla’s miraculous healing power and was even now amazed by it. One cell turns to two, two to four, four to sixteen, all in a matter of seconds, Johnny shook his head as he looked at the screen whose footage of that had been stored and saw the ruined cells come back to life. He looked at the cells recovering and even dividing… with the most beautiful part being when the double helix of DNA split and recombined. When the chromosomes were completely cleaved in half and went into two new cells, it was like watching the process of Creation…
He knew that this was due to Godzilla’s “M-Base.” Ordinary creatures had only four genetic bases, adenine, cytosine, thymine, and guanine but this had a fifth base. It was only poorly understood but the fact that a fifth base had to be what allowed the monster to exist. Before M-Base’s discovery, many a scientist had torn his hair out because of the fact that Godzilla, him being hundreds of feet tall, and shooting beam weapons whose biological impossibilities were incredibly destructive. It was what allowed Godzilla, among other things, to instantly heal from any wound. It had first been described by a doctor who had long advocated finding a way to apply it to medicine. Johnny had heard that the man and his work and was already beginning initial research to those ends. And yet, just as easily as it could be used for good, it could also be used for evil: biological weapons.
With that, a perverse glee entered Johnny. He took a sample of freshly irradiated Godzilla cells and put them under the microscope. Even now the cells could be seen to divide, making ever more copies of themselves. He took the slide and, after donning a lead apron, took some radioactive isotopes, the same kind that had been used to fell the Rhedosaurus that attacked New York City so long ago. Johnny had liquefied the isotopes now placed a drop on the slide with Godzilla cells.
Back at the microscope, Johnny looked at the Godzilla cells as they were now. They seemed no worse for wear and if anything seemed healthier with the traces of radiation in the isotope. It was then that he turned back to the small dish and took another sample of the virus, just as before. Unlike before, when Johnny introduced the virus, there was no rush of the immune system and no reconstruction of cells. Existing only to destroy, a virus is capable of nothing but infecting a cell and corrupting its DNA. It was done with its own RNA—the filthy little pathogen was too primitive for anything else—which mutated the double helix and enslaving the cell until it worked to death as a factory for making still more viruses.
Indeed, after looking away from the microscope to look at the strip of Godzilla flesh, it was clear that the blood poisons of the Rhedosaurus were still as potent as ever. (How ironic, Johnny thought. The isotope that killed the beast from 20,000 miles away and its poisons together would kill another monster.) The fact that he had even tailored it to latch onto the beast’s DNA was seen as the tissue sample had visibly begun to decay. The blood that kept oozing from it was raising an infernal stink.
Completely protected by his suit Johnny was unaware of any smell but he couldn’t believe his eyes when the entire fingernail-sized piece of skin began to smolder and burst into flame. Though he looked with eyes wide open at the thin, twisting plume of smoke, Johnny turned his head towards the screen and picked up the remote control. He switched and saw how the isotopes had managed to deactivate the gene responsible for Godzilla’s healing power, Regenerator G-1… thus leaving Godzilla open to any attack.
And with his having used the viral plagues found in the blood of the Rhedosaurus, it was quite an attack. It had taken years of effort to adapt the grisly diseases and re-engineer them so they would only begin working in the presence of the isotopes, but it was well worth it. If it worked, no one would lose family to the monster again. That’s when he got a call, something about having to go to the main hanger. He went cheerfully. His assistants were nearly as skilled as he was and they had his notes. Time to go save the world.
To Be Continued…
Mike Hamson 